As part of the split of Vamed, the management apparently also wants to uncover abuses within the company. To make this easier, around 300 employees at the Vienna headquarters were promised by letter that there would be no consequences under labor or civil law if they were involved in abuses and provided information about them.
The letter quotes the “Standard” as saying that the “conclusion of an amnesty agreement” will be offered by mid-October. This should encourage employees to “provide documents” and “provide information about potentially incorrect behavior.”
The letter does not provide any specific information about which grievances the employees should provide information about. However, processes have been underway within the group for some time now in which “among other things, the background of the collaboration with various contractual partners” in the international project business, which is to be settled as part of the split, is being “researched”. A law firm called Lathman & Watkins is also helping with the review process.
According to the “Standard”, these could be grievances that arose under the leadership of Ernst Wastler, who was CEO of Vamed from 2001 to 2023. After his departure, the majority owner Fresenius set up an “audit committee” to take a closer look at the company’s processes.
Vamed says that the amnesty agreement is intended to give employees confidence that the company will support them during the current transition phase. “This is a standard procedure in connection with the reduction of project business and associated contractual arrangements,” it says. The agreement therefore only applies to employees who work in international project business.
The Vamed Group, which has around 20,000 employees, was filleted by Fresenius in May this year and divided up into different companies. The two construction companies Porr and Strabag are acquiring shares in several thermal baths in Austria, the technical management of the Vienna General Hospital (AKH Vienna) and the Austrian Vamed project business. The private equity firm PAI Partners is taking over 67 percent of the Vamed rehabilitation business. The remaining 33 percent will remain with Fresenius.
As was already announced in May, Vamed wants to dissolve the international project business, i.e. the Health Tech Engineering segment. The process is to be completed by 2026, but ongoing project contracts are to be fulfilled. The international project business recently accounted for around 15 percent of Vamed’s sales. In July, 40 of the total 222 jobs in the division were cut. Health Tech Engineering is mainly active in Africa and Latin America, where it plans and builds health facilities, such as hospitals, and maintains them.