A corruption and bribery trail involving Siemens opens today at a Munich court.

Reinhard Siekaczek, who worked at Siemens for almost four decades, is charged with embezzlement.

The court will claim Siekaczek ran a slush fund to win contracts and set up a network of front firms to cover the transfer of money.

The scandal created one of the biggest bribery investigations in German corporate history. It claimed the scalp of company chairman, Heinrich von Pierer who was forced to resign.

Siekaczek was an executive in the company's telecoms equipment unit COM.

In his statements he was asked to set up slush funds for bribes in 1999 or 2000. The bribes were paid to in more than a dozen countries.

The trail will be of great interest in other countries where other investigators are looking into Seimens payments.

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