Infineon faces up to personel corruption scnadal

Shares in Infineon Technologies AG, Europe’s largest chipmaker, fell 1.2 percent to €8.31 on Monday on the news that Andreas von Zitzewitz, the head of the company’s core memory-chip unit had resigned over the weekend after news broke that he is under investigation for taking kickbacks in return for arranging sports sponsorship deals with a public relations agency.

Another ex-manager for Infineon and the president of the Swiss public relations agency BF Consulting are also being investigated in the matter.

Infineon itself is not a target of the investigation, the company said, and is cooperating fully with the investigation.

The Munich state prosecutor said that investigation, which included raids on 15 properties in Germany and Switzerland, had confirmed that Mr. Von Zitzewitz had in fact received *259,000 (US$313,000) for his participation in the scheme.

This is the second resignation of a top German executive over allegations of corruption in just a few weeks, as Volkswagen AG’s chief of personnel quit last month as he took responsibility for misconduct among his staff.

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