Washington  - Siemens subsidiaries in Argentina and Venezuela have agreed to each pay 500,000-dollar criminal fines to the United States to help settle a massive global bribery case, US officials said Monday.

The fines are a small part of the 1.3 billion dollars that the German-based Siemens parent firm agreed to pay to the US and German governments. That sum includes 800 million dollars to the United States in civil and criminal fines, according to documents filed in US District Court in Washington.

Siemens pleaded guilty to violating the rules of the New York Stock Exchange, where the German company has been listed since 2001, and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In addition, some of the illegal payments were made from US banks.

According to court documents, Siemens Argentina was charged with naking at least 31 million dollars in corrupt payments to Argentine officials to win a contract valued at 1 billion dollars to develop a national identity card. The payouts were made from 2001-07.

Siemens Venezuela was charged with paying at least 18.8 million dollars to Venezuelan officials to help build rapid-transit systems in the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia. The total value of all the transit contracts was estimated at 340 million dollars. (dpa)