AB BOFORS

BOFORS LEGENDARY DIRECTOR GENERAL

CLAES-ULRIK WINBERG

Claes-Ulrik Winberg was a Swedish industrialist and business executive. He was CEO of AB BOFORS from 1972 to 1984. He was also Chairman of the Swedish Iron Industry Association from 1978 to 1983 and of the Swedish Employers Association SAF from 1984 to 1985.

TO THE MEMORY OF CLAES-ULRIK WINBERG

Harald Jan Dahle: Claes Ulrik Winberg was CEO of BOFORS when he came together with HR Manager Willy Ekberg to Oslo in 1983 to take part in a staff conference. I met Claes Ulrik Winberg as a journalist at Hotel Bristol where I interviewed him and Willy Ekberg. I also took some pictures of Claes-Ulrik Winberg for Norway's largest daily newspaper "Aftenposten" (The Evening Post) like the one below.

 Winberg was Steering Chairman of the board of the Swedish Employers Association from 1984.

Steering Chairman SAF 1985

 Curt Nicolin, right, leaves SAF Chairman club to BOFORS Claes-Ulrik Winberg

Steering Chairmen throughout the times:

Robert Almström 1902–1903

Gustaf Fredrik Östberg 1903–1907

Hjalmar von Sydow 1907–1931

Sigfrid Edström 1931–1942

Gustaf Söderlund 1943–1946

Carl Johan Malmros 1946–1947

Sven Schwartz 1947–1951

Axel G T Enström 1951-1954

Sven Schwartz 1954–1967

Tryggve Holm1967–1975

Curt Nicolin 1976–1984

Claes-Ulrik Winberg 1984–1985

Bo Rydin 1985–1986

Karl Erik Önnesjö 1986–1989

Ulf Laurin 1989–1996

Anders Scharp 1996–2001



The BOFORS Weapons Export Case

BOFORS

Winberg was CEO of Bofors during a period characterized by unprofitability and structural problems within the company's civilian sector. The company was entirely dependent of the manufacturing of war materials, which occurred during a time when the company's deliveries to the Swedish military decreased due to shrunken government subsidies to the military.

Winberg's line was to focus even harder on the war materials manufacturing. He advocated a weapons export policy without any restrictions whatsoever and periodically pursued an intensive lobby campaign towards Swedish defence politicians. It was during Winberg's leadership that Bofors become involved in Singapore, a strategic effort to increase weapons export in the entire Southeast Asia.

In May 1984 Winberg was reported to the police by the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS) on charges of smuggling, for the alleged sale of RBS 70 to the illicit countries Dubai and Bahrain through Singapore. This started a series of revelations of what would later be known as the Bofors scandal. When Bofors during the turn of the year 1984/1985 merged with the company Kema Nobel into the new company Nobel Industrier, Winberg left his position as CEO but continued as a member of board of the new company.

In June 1985, after the suspicions of crime against Bofors strength-ened, Winberg resigned from his position as chairman of the Swedish Employers' Confederation. In the summer of 1988 Winberg, together with three other former Bofors executives, was prosecuted by the Stockholm District Court for his role in the smuggling scandal.

During the entire police investigation, Winberg strongly dismissed any participation in letting the weapon deliveries reach the unallowed countries Dubain and Bahrain. The court proceedings, where Winberg due to his sudden and unexpected death didn't participate, began on 4 September 1989. In December the same year, the three other former Bofors executives – Martin Ardbo, Lennart Pålsson and Hans Ekblom – where convicted by the court and given a conditional sentence for the illicit smuggling of goods. Furthermore, the company Nobel Industrier was ordered by the court to pay SEK 11 million in fines.

Personal life

In 1952 he married Kristina Bergenstråhle (born 1929), the daughter of Gunnar Bergenstråhle and Ebba (née de Besche). He is the father of Ulrik (born 1955), Flemming (born 1958) and Christer (born 1960).

Death

Winberg died in a car crash on road 53 between Västerås and Eskilstuna on 31 May 1989. Winberg was, together with his wife Kristina who also died in the crash, on his way to a dinner with friends in Stockholm. According to the police report, the car they were driving skidded on a wet roadway and collided with an oncoming van

EARLY LIFE

Winberg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of major Karl Winberg and his wife Nellie (née Møller). He passed studentexamen in Jönköping in 1944 and studied at the Royal Swedish Naval Academy in the end of the 1940s and graduated from Technical University of Denmark with a Master of Engineering degree in 1952. Winberg worked as an engineer at Husqvarna vapenfabrik AB from 1952 to 1953 and at Sundstrand Machine Tool Company in Rockford, Illinois, United States from 1953 to 1955.

He then worked for the same company in Paris from 1955 to 1957. Winberg was export manager at A/S Atlas in Copenhagen, from 1957 to 1960 and CEO of A/S Sören Wistoft & Co Fabriker in Copenhagen from 1960 to 1962. Winberg worked as assistant to the managing director at AB Svenska Fläktfabriken from 1962 to 1966 and was CEO of Hexagon AB from 1966 to 1971. He was appointed vice CEO of AB Bofors in 1971 and was CEO of AB Bofors from 1972 to 1984. He was also chairman of the board of the Swedish Employers Association from 1984.

Winberg was in the late 1960s a board member of Svenska plåtrör AB, Hexagon AB, Gustav Carlsson & Co. He was also a board deputy of Vegete Group as well as board member of Copenhagen Junior Chamber of Commerce from 1959 to 1962 and the machine engineering group in the Danish Engineering Association (Dansk Ingeniørforening) from 1962. Winberg was later on also a board member of Vegete from 1966 (chairman from 1981), Swedish Iron Industry Association (Järnbruksförbundet) from 1973 (chairman 1978-83), Federation of Swedish Industries (Sveriges Industriförbund) from 1973, Gusums bruk AB from 1974, Sveriges Mekanförbund from 1974, Örebro County and Västmanland County chamber of commerce from 1974 (chairman 1977-83) and of Hasselfors AB from 1977. Winberg was also a board member of Boliden AB from 1979, the National Swedish Board of Economic Defence from 1978 and of the Swedish steel producers' association Jernkontoret from 1973. Winberg was a member of the Royal Patriotic Society from 1978.

By Jan-Ove Sundberg November 2nd, 2006

THE WINBERG CASE

 An investigation into the deaths of

Claes-Ulrik Winberg and Kristina Bergenstråhle Winberg

THE BACKGROUND

As CEO of Bofors, Claes-Ulrik Winberg was responsible for the sale of Robot 70 to the company AOS in Singapore. But robots immediately went on to the banned countries of Dubai and Bahrain. Therefore, he was charged with aggravated smuggling of goods. The trial is set to begin on September 4. The former SAF chairman risked up to six years in prison.

  THE DEATH

Claes-Ulrik Winberg, 63, and his wife Kristina, 59, died at 17.02, on Wednesday 31 May 1989 in a traffic accident outside Västerås. Their car, a Renault 5, came out in the wrong lane and collided with an oncoming van. The fatal accident occurred on highway 53 in Kolbäck between Västerås and Kvicksund. During a road work with freshly laid and wet asphalt, Winberg's car skidded and collided violently with an American van. Both Claes-Ulrik Winberg and his wife were thrown out of the car and killed immediately. The driver of the van survived unscathed.

Just a couple of hours before the accident, Chief Prosecutor Folke Ljungwall in Karlstad had decided not to prosecute Winberg and six other Bofors directors for smuggling 40 cannons to Taiwan. They were also suspected of smuggling ammunition to Thailand, and even in that part the preliminary investigation was dropped.

SITE INVESTIGATION

On Friday, June 2, 1989, I went with Olle Albertsson as driver to the place where Claes-Ulrik Winberg and his wife were killed. The exact accident site could not be found, but after newspaper information (and conversations with a nearby resident) that it happened just beyond the exit road to Rytterne, we could only state that the site was tidy and did not show any traces of an accident. The road at the site was wide and smooth, the view clear and unobstructed on a long stretch of road.

According to the large farmer on the farm Lyckeby (towards Strömsholm), the road was wet on the day in question when Winberg was injured. He did not remember if the rain fell the same day, but thought it could have been so. "A policeman who came up from the ditch where Winberg's car wreck lay was completely wet on his feet," the farmer told us. The accident car was reportedly taken to Volvo's facility in Tunbytorp and then to a scrap yard. During a check with the scrap yard, it turned out that the car was taken on to Volvo's own scrap yard in Smedjebacken, 130 km north of Västerås.

When we were on our way to the Tunbytorp facility in Västerås, a Mercedes 190 hooked on us. It stopped behind Olle's car and the driver openly wrote down our car number. The car, which had registration number NXR 130, was owned by Ivar Roland Andersson, Rundbyvägen 24 in Västerås, born XXXXXX-XXXX (removed here for privacy reasons).

Detective Inspector Lars Jonsson at Rotel 2 at Västerås Police: "The Winbergs have been taken to Uppsala for an autopsy. It will take 4 to 5 months before we get the result". Blomgren at Bärningskåren in Västerås: "The couple's seat belts were worn, they flew out through the sunroof and landed 15 meters from the car, which is very unusual".

Hans Persson at the Tunbytorp facility in Västerås: "The car wreck is covered and will not be shown until all investigations are completed. More investigations than the police are ongoing, which we do not want to say". An SÄPO official admitted that "a foreign intelligence service probably liquidated the Winberg couple".

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