The planned merger of network infrastructure units at Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG won’t close by the end of this year as expected because the companies will execute a compliance review of Siemens, spurred by the corruption investigation currently shaking the German technology company.
Authorities across Europe have been investigating bribery charges at Siemens. Earlier this week, the former head of Siemens’ telecommunications equipment group — the one to be merged with Nokia’s networks unit — was arrested as part of the investigation.
The companies announced plans in June to merge the groups, creating a company called Nokia Siemens Networks that would have had combined revenues in 2005 of