Bach Scrutiny in German Report

(ATR) IOC President Thomas Bach says all of his business dealings as an attorney prior to his election in 2013 have been properly disclosed.

An April 6 report in the German online publication Correctiv.org says that for five years, Bach received €125,000 per year from the MAN Ferrostaal company, based in Essen. The firm is an industrial matchmaker, funneling business such as power plant construction and armaments from countries around the world to German manufacturers. Prior to the report, the former business arrangement was not publicly known.

Bach spokesman Christian Klaue calls the corrective.org report an "obvious attempt to damage the reputation of Mr. Bach."

He terms the report a "non story'.

Jens Weinreich and Frederik Richter report that Bach was hired as an attorney who helped open doors for MAN Ferrostaal along with his work for Siemens, another German industrial giant.

The report says that Bach was also offered a bonus for any sales he generated across a range of industrial products from transport to power plants. Bach, however, never took any bonus, Klaue says in a response to the report.

Published on twitter and the website of the DOSB, the German NOC, Klaue says Bach’s work for industrial firms was his livelihood. As an IOC member, Bach received no compensation until he became IOC president in 2013. Klaue says once that happened, Bach ended all his private corporate work.

Bach has been an IOC member since 1991 and has served in that time as a vice president and head of the IOC Legal Affairs Commission. Klaue says Bach has always disclosed his private affiliations to the IOC Ethics Commission and that no issues have arisen.

Klaue says Bach was never involved in the sale of arms and that independent inquiries into Bach’s corporate work "found that Mr. Bach's integrity is beyond doubt."

But the article in correctiv.org says it has not received a response to its requests to see those reports that are said to have cleared Bach.

"Companies from the Siemens empire have received orders worth a total of several billion euros for almost two decades at almost all Olympics and many other major sporting events. Siemens is also the largest individual shareholder of the Atos Group, which is part of the select group of IOC sponsors and organized a large part of the IT infrastructure during this Olympic Games and received several other large orders," says the report.

Klaue says Bach has "always separated" his work in the corporate world from his volunteer work as an IOC member and as president of the DOSB.

Written by Ed Hula.