Siemens Lawsuit History: Bribery, Patents, and ERISA Claims

Siemens AG and its subsidiaries have been involved in a wide range of lawsuits, from the record-setting 2008 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bribery settlement of more than $1.6 billion to active 2026 disputes over software licensing, medical-imaging patents, retirement-plan management, and the handling of a $89.8 million municipal settlement. The cases below cover the most significant Siemens lawsuits on record, including matters where Siemens is the defendant and matters where a Siemens entity is the one suing.

The 2008 FCPA Bribery Settlement

The most consequential legal matter in Siemens’ history is its 2008 resolution with U.S. and German authorities over systematic bribery of foreign officials. On December 15, 2008, Siemens AG and three subsidiaries in Argentina, Bangladesh, and Venezuela pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company paid more than $1.6 billion in combined penalties, the largest FCPA settlement at the time.¹

The penalties broke down as $450 million in criminal fines to the U.S. Department of Justice, $350 million in disgorgement to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and roughly $856 million in fines to the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office across multiple proceedings.¹ The SEC described its disgorgement figure as reflecting more than $1.1 billion in profits Siemens earned from contracts tainted by bribery.²

The underlying conduct ran from 2001 to 2007 and was global. According to the SEC, Siemens made at least 4,283 payments totaling roughly $1.4 billion to bribe government officials across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The bribes secured contracts for metro transit systems in Venezuela and China, power plants in Israel, telecommunications infrastructure in Bangladesh and Nigeria, medical devices in Vietnam and Russia, and a $1 billion national identity card project in Argentina.² Siemens also paid over $1.7 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi government under the UN Oil-for-Food Program.¹

The payments were concealed through slush funds, off-books accounts, sham consulting agreements, and, in some instances, the physical transport of cash in suitcases across borders. Some records were kept on Post-it notes to avoid a permanent trail. As part of the resolution, Siemens agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for four years and to restructure its operations. The company neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations.²

A Whistleblower’s Later Allegations

The settlement did not close the file on Siemens’ compliance culture. Meng-Lin Liu, a former compliance officer at Siemens Healthcare in China, later alleged that the company created exceptions to its vetting processes for “high-risk” entities, particularly import and export companies in China, allowing them to bypass due diligence. Liu raised the concerns internally in 2009 and emailed the independent monitor and the company’s compliance department in November 2010. He was stripped of his responsibilities and fired. Siemens described his departure as a “mutual termination agreement” based on “performance issues.” Liu sued for whistleblower retaliation.³

VMware v. Siemens Over Unlicensed Software

In March 2025, VMware LLC, a Broadcom subsidiary, sued Siemens AG and six related U.S. entities for copyright infringement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The case, 1:25-cv-00353, alleges that Siemens deployed thousands of copies of VMware software without licenses.⁴⁵

The dispute started in September 2024, when Siemens requested a one-year renewal of VMware maintenance and support. The renewal request, VMware says, included a list showing that Siemens had “downloaded, copied, distributed and deployed thousands of copies of VMware products for which it had never purchased a license.”⁶ After VMware followed up in October 2024, Siemens submitted revised numbers that lined up more closely with VMware’s internal records, offered no explanation for the discrepancy, and declined an independent software audit. VMware values the allegedly unlicensed software at over $100 million.⁵

The complaint asserts direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement. It does not include a breach-of-contract claim, despite a 2012 license and service agreement between the companies that was extended for three years in 2021.⁵ VMware seeks an injunction against further use of the products, damages, and profits.

In June 2025, Siemens filed motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim, and to transfer the case to Germany under forum non conveniens.⁴ In early 2026, Magistrate Judge Laura Hatcher recommended denying the transfer, finding the forum selection clause in the 2012 agreement too narrow to force the case into Munich courts. She also recommended dismissing Siemens AG, the German parent, for lack of personal jurisdiction, leaving the U.S.-based Siemens affiliates as defendants.⁷ The case remains active in Delaware as of June 2026.

Jackson, Mississippi Water Billing Settlement

In 2013, the City of Jackson, Mississippi, entered a $90 million contract with Siemens to upgrade water and sewer infrastructure and install an automated billing system, with $120 million in guaranteed savings. The city later alleged a “bait-and-switch,” saying Siemens and its subcontractors failed to deliver a functional billing system, installed faulty meters, and left residents receiving inaccurate or missing bills.⁸

Jackson sued in June 2019 for $225 million. Siemens denied wrongdoing and settled in February 2020 for $89.8 million.⁹ Roughly $30 million went to the law firms representing the city, and the remaining $59.8 million was wired into a city bank account in April 2020. The city spent nearly all of the money within 18 months; by September 2022, about $1.8 million remained.¹⁰

That pace drew federal attention. Ted Henifin, the federally appointed interim manager of Jackson’s water system (JXN Water), told a court in June 2025 that he could not account for how the funds were spent, saying “the $60 million went somewhere else. It didn’t go to the water and sewer system.”¹¹ On July 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate issued subpoenas to the City of Jackson, JXN Water, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, the EPA, and multiple law firms, seeking a full financial accounting.⁹ Eighteen subpoenas were eventually issued. The city produced a list of expenditures but no supporting documentation, and officials said they lacked records showing how the $30 million in legal fees was divided.¹²

Siemens Corporation objected to the subpoena on August 11, 2025, arguing that it had no material communication with the city after April 2020, held no information on subsequent spending, and that the correct defendant in the underlying case had been “Siemens Industry,” not “Siemens Corporation.”¹³ Judge Wingate has paused a proposed JXN Water rate increase pending the outcome of the financial investigation.¹⁴

Hologic v. Siemens Healthineers Patent Ruling

In June 2026, the European Unified Patent Court ruled that Siemens Healthineers infringed a Hologic patent covering “Flying Focal Spot” technology used in breast cancer screening. The technology, protected by European Patent EP 2 352 431, shifts the focal spot during X-ray exposure to improve image quality. The court found that Siemens’ Mammomat B.brilliant breast tomosynthesis system violated the patent.¹⁵

The Düsseldorf Local Division of the UPC issued a broad injunction barring Siemens from making, offering, selling, importing, or storing the affected systems in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. It also ordered a mandatory recall and destruction of all unsold Mammomat B.brilliant systems in those countries, and required Siemens to refund customers and cover recall logistics costs.¹⁵ Siemens argued that recalling systems from universities and hospitals would be “disproportionate,” and the court rejected that position. Siemens had 60 days to comply or appeal, with penalties of about $11,500 per day for non-compliance.¹⁶

Siemens Energy 401(k) ERISA Class Action

In July 2025, a former employee filed a class action against Siemens Energy, Inc. alleging mismanagement of the company’s 401(k) plan. The case, Babinski v. Siemens Energy, Inc., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.¹⁷

The complaint, brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, alleges three categories of fiduciary failure. The plan allegedly charged participants up to $205 per person annually for recordkeeping services that cost roughly $30 in comparable plans, paying “millions of dollars” to Alight Financial Solutions in what the plaintiff calls a prohibited transaction with an affiliated provider.¹⁷ The plan also allegedly maintained a proprietary stable value fund of synthetic guaranteed investment contracts that yielded lower returns and carried more risk than comparable alternatives. And when non-vested participants left the company and forfeited their employer contributions, those funds were allegedly used to reduce the company’s future contributions rather than to defray plan administrative costs.¹⁸

The plan held about $3.5 billion in assets and served nearly 14,000 participants as of 2023.¹⁷ Siemens Energy moved to dismiss the amended complaint in December 2025; the motion remained pending as of mid-2026, with a trial date set for July 2027.¹⁹

California Wage-and-Hour Class Action

In June 2023, two former commissioned employees, Chanielle Enomoto and Brandon Johnson, filed a class action against Siemens Industry, Inc. in Alameda County Superior Court. They alleged that Siemens misclassified commissioned salespeople as exempt from overtime, resulting in unpaid overtime wages, missed meal and rest breaks, unreimbursed business expenses for home internet, automobile, and cell phone costs, and failures to pay all wages and commissions upon separation.²⁰

The case was removed to federal court and then transferred from the Northern District of California to the Central District in September 2023, after a judge found insufficient connection to the Northern District.²¹ It settled in October 2024 for $5.5 million, including $200,000 in penalties under California’s Private Attorneys General Act.²²

False Claims Act Settlements

In February 2024, Siemens Industry, Inc. paid $1,086,430 to resolve False Claims Act allegations brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. The case involved a 2011 energy performance contract with the Hamtramck Housing Commission, a HUD-funded public housing authority in Michigan. Prosecutors alleged that Siemens used inaccurate data when calculating energy savings, causing the housing commission to submit records to HUD that inflated the federal government’s annual subsidy payments. The settlement resolved a whistleblower qui tam action filed by Kevin Kondrat and Jessica Jones, who received $179,261. Siemens did not admit liability.²³

Earlier, in 2015, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. paid $5.9 million to settle allegations that it overcharged the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical imaging equipment between 2002 and 2008. The government alleged that Siemens failed to provide the contractually required “best price” discounts and then withheld information about the overcharges after discovering them internally.²⁴

Pay Discrimination and Workplace Safety

In October 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs reached a conciliation agreement with Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc. over gender-based pay discrimination at its Newark, Delaware, manufacturing facility. A routine compliance review found that, beginning in January 2020, the company paid female system engineers less than male counterparts in similar positions. Siemens paid $57,200 in back wages and interest to eight women and $24,821 in salary adjustments to three others, for a total of $82,021. The Newark facility is a federal contractor with at least $882 million in federal contracts since 2020.²⁵

Siemens subsidiaries have also drawn OSHA citations. In 2025, Siemens Industry, Inc. was fined $11,823 and Siemens Mobility, Inc. was fined $7,315 for workplace safety violations.²⁶

When Siemens Is the Plaintiff: Software Copyright Enforcement

Siemens Industry Software Inc. is not only a copyright defendant. It is an aggressive enforcer of its own software copyrights, particularly for engineering programs like NX, Solid Edge, and Simcenter. The company has filed a series of mass copyright infringement lawsuits in Texas federal courts against anonymous “John Doe” defendants whose IP addresses were allegedly linked to unlicensed downloads.

Recent filings include a September 2024 case against 52 defendants, a February 2023 case naming 268 defendants, and a February 2021 case targeting 142 defendants.²⁷ The pattern is consistent: Siemens files suit, obtains court approval to subpoena internet service providers for the identities behind the IP addresses, and then contacts the identified individuals to negotiate settlements. In many cases the goal is to convert the accused user into a paying customer, with software license costs ranging from a few thousand dollars to over $30,000. Some earlier mass filings hit procedural trouble when Siemens missed deadlines to name and serve defendants and were dismissed. The company has reportedly continued contacting defendants in dismissed cases to pursue settlements outside of litigation.²⁸

Siemens Gamesa Wind Tower Trade Dispute

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, a Siemens Energy subsidiary, fought a multiyear case at the U.S. Court of International Trade over antidumping duties on utility-scale wind towers imported from Spain. The Department of Commerce initially assigned a 73% “adverse facts available” dumping rate to Siemens Gamesa and its manufacturing affiliate, Windar Renovables, after concluding the two should be treated as a single collapsed entity for investigation purposes.²⁹

After two rounds of court-ordered remands, Commerce conducted an individual investigation and calculated a revised dumping margin of 28.55%. The Wind Tower Trade Coalition argued for restoring the 73% rate, but in January 2025 the Court of International Trade sustained the 28.55% figure as reasonable.²⁹ Commerce then published notice that the ruling was “not in harmony” with its original final determination, as required by law when a court decision changes a dumping margin.³⁰

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Siemens AG and Three Subsidiaries Plead Guilty to FCPA Violations
2
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Files Settled FCPA Charges Against Siemens AG
3
McGraw Center. Slammed for Bribery, Siemens Continued to Ignore Red Flags
4
CourtListener. VMware LLC v. Siemens AG
5
CIO Dive. VMware Sues Siemens for Copyright Infringement Over Licensing Dispute
6
Yahoo Finance. VMware Accuses Siemens of Stalling Software Licensing Suit
7
SDxCentral. VMware Wins Partial Legal Battle With Siemens on a Single Word
8
Mississippi Free Press. City of Jackson Reaches $89.8 Million Settlement With Siemens
9
Clarion Ledger. Jackson Siemens Payout Scrutinized as Federal Government Issues Subpoenas
10
WLBT. Records: Jackson Spent Nearly All $89.8M Siemens Settlement Within 18 Months
11
Mississippi Free Press. Federal Judge Subpoenas Jackson for Records on Siemens Settlement
12
Clarion Ledger. How Jackson, Mississippi, Spent Siemens Settlement Money
13
WLBT. Siemens Corporation Files Objection to Judge’s Subpoena Over Settlement Funds
14
Mississippi Today. Rate Decision on Hold as Wingate Tracks Down Siemens Funds
15
Hologic. Hologic Secures Significant Patent Victory Against Siemens Over Breast Cancer Screening Technology
16
Radiology Business. Hologic Wins Mammography Patent Infringement Case Against Siemens Healthineers
17
PLAN Adviser. Complaint Alleges ERISA Breaches in Siemens Energy 401(k) Plan
18
BenefitsLink. Babinski v. Siemens Energy Inc., Complaint
19
Docket Alarm. Babinski v. Siemens Energy Inc., Docket
20
BenefitsLink. Enomoto and Johnson v. Siemens Industry Inc., Class Action Complaint
21
CaseMine. Enomoto v. Siemens Indus., Transfer Order
22
CABIA. Chanielle Enomoto and Brandon Johnson v. Siemens Industry Inc.
23
U.S. Department of Justice. Siemens Industry Inc. to Pay Over $1 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations
24
U.S. Department of Justice. Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc. to Pay $5.9 Million to Resolve Civil False Claims Act Allegations
25
U.S. Department of Labor. Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Resolves Pay Discrimination Allegations
26
Good Jobs First. Violation Tracker – Siemens
27
CourtListener. Siemens Industry Software Inc. v. Does 1-268, Complaint
28
Torrent Lawyer. Siemens Industry Software Lawsuits
29
U.S. Court of International Trade. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy v. United States, Opinion
30
Federal Register. Utility Scale Wind Towers From Spain: Notice of Court Decision Not in Harmony