Embattled German rail boss quits under pressure (Roundup)

Berlin - Hartmut Mehdorn, the embattled head of German rail carrier Deutsche Bahn, tendered his resignation on Monday after losing political support in the wake of a row over data protection. Mehdorn, who has run the state-owned company since 1999, has been under growing pressure amid disclosures that the rail operator had been accessing confidential staff data for more than a decade. Earlier this year, it emerged that 173,000 of Deutsche Bahn's 220,000 employees had been screened this way in apparent contravention of data protection laws. Over the weekend, further revelations surfaced that the company had monitored the emails of staff suspected of leaking information to journalists and had deleted a 2007 email sent by the train drivers union GDL to employees calling for strike action. This prompted calls from rail union leaders for him to step down and led to senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government saying his position was no longer tenable. Mehdorn, 66, told a news conference outlining the company's 2008 figures that he had asked the head of Deutsche Bahn's supervisory board to release him from his contract. He said he hoped a successor could be found by the summer. The German government issued a statement paying tribute to Mehdorn's performance during nearly 10 years as chief executive and saying it respected his offer to step down. Union leaders called the move 'a logical consequence of the snooping scandal.' Mehdorn denied any personal wrongdoing, but said as chief of Deutsche Bahn he was responsible for what happened in such a large company whether he was aware of it or not. He defended the efforts of the rail operator's compliance unit which as part of an anti-corruption drive had authorized the comparison of personal data about employees with that of its suppliers. The rail boss also claimed the deletion of the strike call email had been done for technical reasons, pointing out that it was sent illegally over the Deutsche Bahn server. Mehdorn himself admitted in February that, as part of an anti-corruption campaign, Deutsche Bahn spied on 173,000 employees in 2002 and 2003. Official documents have since shown Deutsche Bahn screened its entire workforce again in 2005 for corruption. A pugnacious figure who never shied away from a fight, Mehdorn pared the rail operator's costs and shrugged off a series of crises, including a wave of strikes and financial setbacks. He will leave behind a company that saw pre-tax profits for 2008 rise 4.8 per cent to 2.48 billion euros (3.2 billion dollars), according to figures released on Monday. 'Under my leadership, (Deutsche) Bahn is in good shape despite the serious economic and financial crisis,' Mehdorn told the Sunday edition of Germany's Bild newspaper. Mehdorn had hoped to see the company partially privatized, but was forced to put his plan on ice in November because of the global financial crisis. The issue triggered public outrage because of generous bonuses promised to executives if the sale went ahead. Other recent scandals to dog the company involved safety issues related to its high-speed ICE trains and overzealous conductors ejecting children from trains because they had mislaid their tickets.