GERMAN AUTHORITIES are investigating claims that Deutsche Telekom paid a private investigator to monitor phone calls between its executives and business journalists to plug a leak within the company.
According to Der Spiegel magazine, Europe's largest telecoms company received a fax from an unnamed Berlin company earlier this year threatening to go public about the nature of its work for Deutsche Telekom if outstanding payments were not received.
Der Spiegel claims the company was hired in 2005 by Deutsche Telekom's supervisory board, increasingly frustrated at how confidential restructuring proposals found their way into the media.
To find the leak, the company was allegedly granted access to phone-call data of Deutsche Telekom managers, business journalists and company shareholders.
Deutsche Telekom has admitted to employing an external company to monitor security issues over 18 months in 2005 and 2006 but has declined to go into details.
Deutsche Telekom chief executive René Obermann acted quickly to limit the damaging allegations yesterday, promising "severe consequences" if investigators found the law was broken.
"I am deeply shocked by the allegations," he said. "We're taking this very seriously."
Kai-Uwe Ricke, Deutsche Telekom chief executive at the time of the alleged activities, told Der Spiegel he was aware of the company but denied issuing orders to monitor phone records.
Extracts from the company's fax in Der Spiegel say orders came "directly from the board, in close co-operation with the chairman".
The chairman at that time was Klaus Zumwinkel, forced to resign as head of Deutsche Post in February after admitting to large-scale tax evasion.
The scale of the disaster for Deutsche Telekom was clear yesterday, as German newspapers reacted with disbelief, anger and even mockery. "The new double flat-rate: Call and Spy," trumpeted the front page of the left-wing Tageszeitung yesterday.
Spying claims are unlikely to help the company's share price or its dramatically shrinking customer base.
Deutsche Telekom is just the latest German company to be accused of spying on employees. Discount supermarket chain Lidl was forced to make an apology earlier this year when reports on employees written by private investigators surfaced in the media.
A spokesman for the German federal government, which holds a 14.8 per cent share in Deutsche Telekom, said there was "no reason to call into question trust in Mr Obermann".
