USKOK spokesman Vuk Djuricic confirmed for Hina that USKOK had requested launching an investigation to establish all relevant circumstances regarding information published by the media today.

Hina today quoted The Wall Street Journal and foreign news agencies as saying that Daimler AG had agreed in an out-of-court settlement to pay US$ 185 million in damages to put an end to a long-lasting investigation by US authorities which revealed that the company had paid bribes worth millions of dollars in some 20 countries, including Croatia, in order to land new contracts. The source of the information is a report in today's issue of The Wall Street Journal which quoted sources close to the case.

Djuricic confirmed that the Chief State Prosecutor's Office had requested from the United States information on the case.

The Wall Street Journal article says that the out-of-court settlement would put an end to the US Department of Justice investigation into whether Daimler AG had violated US anti-corruption laws and to a related civil investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which was prompted in 2004 by a former employee's complaint.

The article says that a Daimler spokesperson refused to comment on the settlement in greater detail, saying that the company did not want to comment on the case before an April 1 federal court hearing, when the proposed settlement is expected to be presented.

Apart from Croatia, foreign news agencies have also cited China, Russia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, the Ivory Coast, Latvia, Lithuania, Iraq, Nigeria, Serbia, Montenegro, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Vietnam as the countries where Daimler paid bribes.

The bribes included luxury cars for state officials and their children and other valuable gifts, as well as the payment of wedding costs for people in charge of awarding contracts.