Final Pleas Entered in Mannesmann Trial

Former managers and members of the board of German telecommunications giant Mannesmann accused of receiving or approving illegal payments during the Vodafone takeover have entered final "not guilty" pleas.

The final pleas have been made in the Mannesmann trial where a number of former managers at the German telecommunications and engineering company are accused of illegally accepting or arranging golden handshakes during and after the takeover by British mobile phone giant Vodafone in early 2000. Not surprisingly, the defendants once more protested their innocence.

Mannesmann's chief executive at the time, Rupert Esser, is convinced that he behaved perfectly properly and in the interests of his company throughout the long takeover battle as Vodafone raised the price it was prepared to offer.

At the end of the battle, the company was worth a lot more, the shareholders got a much better price, and Esser was awarded a €15 million ($18.5 million) reward. He and the other managers accused say it was for his services to the company. In a somewhat unusual step, Esser also quoted a poem by German writer Joseph von Eichendorff to describe his mood.

"Prosecutors say they used the takeover battle to make money.

Ex-Mannesmann board see no wrong-doing

Esser is not the only one on trial. With him in the dock are former chairman of the supervisory board, Joachim Funk, who also received a big payment, and two of the board's members, Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, and Klaus Zwickel, then general-secretary of the metal workers union, who are accused of not going through the proper procedures to approve the payments.

Ackermann has claimed from the start that the high payments involved were perfectly reasonable, and he repeated during his closing statement that "effort and success must be properly rewarded." He said he hoped "that it will continue to be allowed to be worth the effort to fight for an increase in the value of a company."

But the case revealed to the public the amount of compensation which a very few top managers were receiving, and created considerable public outrage. German civil law requires managerial compensation to be "fair and appropriate to the social situation." There is some debate whether Esser's €15 million reward adheres to that.

Most observers expect the defendants to be let off when the court gives its verdict, expected to come on Thursday next week.