Siemens AG

Checked at the date of this refresh. The project website of the Greek transmission operator's special purpose vehicle states that Siemens (Germany) has been selected as the preferred contractor for constructing the converter stations, and that Nexans holds the cable contract. It describes a phased scheme in which Greece and Cyprus are connected first, over an 898 km submarine cable, with Israel's connection at a later stage. Its published milestones run to September 2024.

The company's own complaints machinery, and the route a campaigner outside Germany can actually use. Siemens states that its Tell Us channel and its ombudsperson are the complaints procedure required by the German supply chain law, that the procedure is open to Siemens employees, external persons and other organisations, that reports may be made anonymously and confidentially at any hour, and that a suspicion may be directed at a Siemens business or at a Siemens supplier. All reports go to a central Reporting Office answering to the Chief Compliance Officer, who has access to the Managing Board and Supervisory Board.

The most recent financial statement on record at the date of this refresh. Orders of EUR 27.9 billion, up 13% and a record; revenue of EUR 20.8 billion, up 7%; Profit Industrial Business up 25% to a record EUR 3.5 billion at a 17.3% margin; net income EUR 2.6 billion; free cash flow EUR 4.1 billion; a book-to-bill ratio of 1.34 and an order backlog of EUR 132 billion. The outlook for the year was raised. Chief Financial Officer Veronika Bienert is named, and states that binding tax decisions clear the way for the planned spin-off of Siemens Healthineers. Establishes that neither the boycott call nor the NGO reporting has produced measurable financial pressure.

A year of correspondence between a Manchester community campaign group and Siemens, which the outlet says it has seen in full. Siemens' UK head of communications replied on 5 August 2025 confirming the supply and maintenance of Double Deck Electrical Multiple Units to Israel Railways under the 2018 contract, and describing the Great Sea Interconnector as a Siemens Energy project and a separate entity. In its May 2026 reply Siemens said that Siemens AG holds approximately 6% of Siemens Energy and therefore cannot and does not control its management decisions; that an internal and external legal review had concluded the rail business was in line with its due diligence obligations; that it is not aware of any negative human rights impacts in connection with its delivery; that only short sections of the A1 run through disputed territory; that it has not been serving prisons in Israel for the past 15 years and is not aware of having served prisons via partners before that; and, on the software licensed through McKit Systems to the Israeli Ministry of Defence, Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries, that Siemens does not comment on relationships with third parties. It also confirmed that Siemens sponsored the ADS Group arms industry dinner on 27 January 2026, saying sponsorship follows its Business Conduct Guidelines.

Siemens' own supply chain human rights policy, dated January 2026 and therefore the live version. It commits the company to risk analysis, preventive measures, remedies and a complaints procedure under the German law, and states that Siemens expects its direct suppliers to commit to the Siemens Code of Conduct for Suppliers and Third Party Intermediaries, that these principles form part of its contractual agreements with direct suppliers, and that suppliers must pass them on down their own chains. The document is the standard against which a direct supplier located in a settlement industrial zone should be measured, and the basis for a complaint about one.

An Israeli business report, useful because of who is saying it. It records that CAF is building light rail in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, that COMSA withdrew from Jerusalem's Blue Line project, that Alstom could lose a Barcelona metro tender, that WSP closed its Israel branch, and that Germany's Siemens, France's Aegis and companies from Italy and Austria have also come under fire for operating in Israel. It notes that most of the companies decided to stay in Israel during the war, while board-level concern about continued involvement in Israeli infrastructure persists. Establishes from the Israeli side that European rail suppliers are feeling procurement pressure.

The global union federation for services and finance workers cites an Oxfam count of USD 1.2 billion of BNP Paribas underwriting for Siemens between January 2021 and August 2024, describing Siemens as supplying and maintaining rolling stock on Israel's A1 line serving settlements. Establishes the financing channel through which institutional pressure on Siemens can also be applied.

Annex I lists 158 business enterprises. Extal Ltd. - the aluminium factory in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone that supplied parts for the Siemens rail contract - appears at entry 62, home State Israel, for listed activity (g): the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes. Annex II names the seven enterprises found no longer involved in listed activities, among them Alstom S.A. and Ariel Properties Group. OHCHR received 733 submissions alleging 596 businesses and could review only 215 given its resources, and states that work continues on those not yet addressed. The assessment period ran from 2 August 2019 to 30 April 2025, and the database expressly excludes activities relating to Gaza and the occupied Syrian Golan.

Report by 84 signatory organisations, among them the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah, the Who Profits Research Center, Oxfam, UNI Global Union, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and the Global Legal Action Network. Its Siemens entry finds the company profiting from and complicit in the settlement project by supplying rail cars, maintenance and systems that enable transport to the settlements, values the 2018 Israel Railways agreement at roughly EUR 1.1 billion, and records Who Profits' documentation of Siemens traffic light systems on settler bypass roads in the West Bank and at the Mishor Adumim industrial zone. It states that Siemens must urgently review and lawfully terminate any contracts linked to illegal settlements and take responsibility for harm caused. Siemens replied within the comment period of 21 May to 4 June 2025, confirming the framework agreement, denying involvement in constructing the A1 route or supplying traffic systems in the occupied territory, and saying it was not aware of any negative human rights impacts following an external review.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded on reasonable grounds that Israeli authorities and security forces have committed and are continuing to commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, that they have and continue to have genocidal intent, and that Israel bears State responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide. The analysis covers Gaza over the period 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025.

The fullest single account of the Israeli relationships, valid as of 21 August 2025. Records the 2017 Israel Railways contract, initially 330 electric cars plus maintenance and a depot for around USD 1 billion, later expanded to 834 cars with options to extend to 2046. Records that one of Siemens' suppliers for the project is Extal, in the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone, contracted for USD 4 million of aluminium parts including support for technological enhancements at the factory, a relationship the Israeli Ministry of Economy initiated in 2019 so that Siemens could meet an obligation to reinvest 20% of the rail contract in the Israeli economy through reciprocal procurement. Records that the Israeli military and arms industry use Siemens Teamcenter, Solid Edge and FLOEFD, licensed in Israel through McKit Systems, a subsidiary of Malam Team, whose client list has included the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael since 2013; and that the ministry acquired or renewed licences totalling at least USD 1 million between November 2023 and June 2024, from a database that discloses only recent, unclassified, non-tendered contracts. Records the Israel Prison Service fire detection contracts through Orad and a Siemens perimeter security system supplied to Gilboa prison in 2004, the sale of the traffic systems division in 2022 to what is now Yunex Traffic, and Siemens' selection as preferred contractor for the converter stations of the Great Sea Interconnector.

The International Court of Justice found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful, held settlements and their associated economic activity contrary to international law, and set out obligations on states in relation to trade and dealings with settlements. The governing ruling for transport infrastructure built across occupied land and for procurement from businesses inside settlement industrial zones.

The company's own account of the rail contract, given in writing on 26 February 2024 in reply to a Who Profits letter of 11 December 2023. It states that Siemens Mobility supplies the Israel Railways Double Deck Electrical Multiple Units under a framework agreement concluded in 2017 and still ongoing; that Siemens Mobility undertook to supply 60 trains with 15 years of maintenance and repair; that customer options let Israel Railways buy more trains on a recurring basis within 10 years and extend servicing to a maximum of 29 years; that Israel Railways had recently ordered 81 more; and that the trains can run on the whole of Israel's electrified network. It adds that Siemens was not involved in constructing the A1 line, that an internal and external legal review concluded the transaction was in line with its human rights due diligence obligations, and that new business will get a further review, particularly on international humanitarian law. On traffic systems it states that Siemens did not supply, install or maintain traffic control systems for use on roads in the occupied territories, and that Intelligent Traffic Systems was carved out in July 2021.

Reports the February 2024 award to Siemens Mobility of a firm order for 81 further Desiro HC partly double-deck electric multiple units under the framework contract signed in 2017, for delivery by 2029, as part of a procurement plan approved in 2023. This is the order that took the Israel Railways fleet to 141 Siemens trains.

The Greek Independent Power Transmission Operator's own statement on taking over the scheme from EuroAsia Interconnector Ltd. It records that EuroAsia Interconnector Ltd had signed the cable contract with Nexans and had selected Siemens as preferred contractor for the converter stations, and that Siemens was in the process of preparing the necessary studies for the contractual arrangements on that segment. Establishes that the converter station award had not, at that point, become a signed construction contract.

The primary field record, valid until 4 December 2023 with the company's February 2024 reply appended. Documents the 2018 Israel Railways tender for 330 electric cars worth about NIS 4 billion, comprising NIS 3.2 billion of carriages, NIS 230 million for the maintenance facility and about NIS 400 million of maintenance services; the entry of the Siemens cars into service on the A1 route in December 2021; and that the A1 route crosses the Green Line into the occupied West Bank in two areas, using occupied Palestinian land, some of it privately owned, for an Israeli transportation project aimed exclusively for Israelis. Documents Siemens traffic control systems on Road 5, Road 443 and Road 1 at the entrance to the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone in 2009, 2010 and 2015, installed alongside the logo of Siemens' Israeli traffic representative RS Industries. Documents fire detection and extinguishing systems supplied to the Israel Prison Service through the Israeli distributor Orad Group, with maintenance contracts running 2012 to 2017, 2018 to 2020, and a sole-supplier contract from January 2021 to the end of 2023.

The campaign launched on 6 October 2022, two days after the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council's letter. It calls for global consumer boycotts and divestment campaigns against Siemens until the company terminates its business involvement in the EuroAsia Interconnector, and for the exclusion of Siemens from public and private contracts and investments. It describes Siemens as having won the tender for the cable, which would connect Israel's electricity grid to the EU's. Siemens remains one of the thirteen named consumer boycott priority targets on the committee's list.

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council wrote on 4 October 2022 to the executive board of Siemens Energy - naming Christian Bruch, Maria Ferraro, Karim Amin and Tim Oliver Holt - asking the company to refrain from all business involvement in the EuroAsia Interconnector that benefits and contributes to the maintenance and expansion of Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. The letter warned that Palestinian civil society would otherwise launch an international boycott campaign. It is the clearest evidence of which corporate entity the Palestinian organisations themselves hold responsible for the cable.

The record on Siemens' settlement supplier, valid until 5 February 2019. Extal is a private Israeli company developing and marketing aluminium systems, with its head office at 10 Eitam Street in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone in the occupied West Bank. It received approval for financial investment from Israel's Ministry of Finance in 2013. Following a long legal struggle by Palestinian workers, an Israeli labour court ruled in 2007 that the company must apply Israeli labour law in its West Bank operations; the company had argued that the applicable framework was Jordanian law of 1967, under which a Palestinian worker in the same factory would hold none of the equal rights an Israeli worker can exercise. Its recorded clients include Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael.

The founding document of the rail relationship, in Siemens' own words. Signed at Lod on 7 March 2018 by Siemens Mobility GmbH, worth approximately EUR 900 million: 60 Desiro HC double-deck trainsets to be delivered over ten years, an initial order of 24 sets in four-car and six-car configurations, a 15-year maintenance agreement for the first 24 and the construction of a maintenance workshop in Ashkelon, with further maintenance options. The Mobility Division's then chief executive called the order strategically important, noting that Siemens would be delivering complete trains to Israel for the first time in its history.

The dedicated report on the railway itself, published by the Israeli research centre in July 2017. It records that the project was initiated in 2001, has cost over NIS 8.5 billion, and that the route crosses the Green Line into the occupied West Bank in two areas, using occupied Palestinian land, some of it privately owned, for an Israeli transportation project aimed exclusively for Israelis. It sets out the involvement of the foreign multinationals without whose investment and expertise the project could not have been built.

Siemens' own statement of its position in Israeli electricity, issued 8 June 2016 on winning its first Israeli turnkey order, for the Alon Tavor and Ramat Gabriel combined cycle plants. It states that approximately 40 percent of Israel's power generation capacity was already based on Siemens technology. The power generation business was separated into Siemens Energy AG in September 2020.

The precedent on this railway. Germany's state railway ended its involvement in the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem project in May 2011, after the German transport ministry wrote to it in February 2011 describing the scheme as a problematic venture and a potential violation of international law touching on questions of status, and the ministry then informed parliament that the company had withdrawn. The Financial Times described it as a victory for pro-Palestinian groups and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.