Siemens announced yesterday it planned to claim damages from 11 of its former executive board members, including ex-chief executives Heinrich von Pierer and Klaus Kleinfeld, over their role in the bribery scandal that struck the company almost two years ago.

Europe's biggest engineering group claimed the managers had "breached their organisational and supervisory responsibilities", so failing to stop illegal practices and wide-ranging bribery in a scandal that could potentially cost the German group several billion euros.