The European engineering firm Siemens just learned that it might be fined as much as €4 billion (close to $6 billion) by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission as the result of a large bribery investigation that began in 2006. The number is about three times the amount of bribes that were uncovered coming from the company by the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation. In other words, the two agencies have discovered close to $2 billion in bribes.

Siemens has been accused of bribing officials and executives across the planet, in countries from Italy to Nigeria to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Employees not in the upper echelons of management were given immunity from prosecution in exchange for speaking out, but many experts don’t think that will improve the enormous morale problems that the company now faces. One German banker, quoted in the UK’s Financial Times and familiar with Siemens, has gone so far as to suggest the company may “implode” from the management loss that will occur pending results of the investigation.