Senior Scania executives knew about the "ministerial bus"

In March, SVT together with German ZDF published information about an extensive bribery culture within Scania's Indian operations.

One deal was about a specially designed and extra-equipped luxury bus that was delivered to India's powerful transport minister Nitin Gadkari in connection with his daughter's wedding in 2016. Gadkari has denied that he received any bus.

Something that is contradicted by, among other things, several internal emails in an internal investigation Scania has done.

The internal investigation also states that Gadkari's family only paid a small part of the bus' value.

Five Scania executives aware of the bus deal

Scania has claimed that the responsibility for the suspected bribery deals lay with local managers in India.

In an interview with Assignment review in March this year, CEO Henrik Henriksson said that in 2016 - 2017 he was not informed about the bribes or the bus deal.

"We had heard rumors that things had happened but we had no evidence of that," he said.

But SVT can now show that at least five Swedish Scania managers had been informed about the bus deal.

In an email from 2015 with the headline “Metrolink for Mr.

Gadkari ”gets three Swedish Scania executives a copy.

In an email in 2016 where the bus to a "very important" person is discussed, the CFO and the then company's CEO Michael Benje are included.

According to the internal investigation, Benje's representative Anders Grundströmer was also involved in the bus deal.

Benje and Grundströmer sat on Scania India's board.

During the same period, the Board also included Scania's outgoing CEO Henrik Henriksson and Scania's incoming CEO Christian Levin.

Participated in a majority of the board meetings during the same period

A board member tells SVT that Henrik Henriksson and Christian Levin were well informed about the tours around the so-called ministerial bus.

According to annual reports, both attended the majority of the company's board meetings during the same period.

According to Scania's press manager, there are no notes in the board minutes that the board has received information about the deal.

But a source tells SVT that because the deal was so sensitive, it is unlikely that such a discussion was written down in the minutes.

In an email to SVT, Scania writes that Christian Levin refrains from commenting on the information.

SVT has sought Anders Grundströmer, Michael Benje and the former CFO without result.