BenQ Mobile staff have protested against the insolvency move

The Siemens executives will instead donate the money to a hardship fund for staff at BenQ Mobile, the unit bought by Taiwanese firm BenQ last year.

Siemens' move comes after BenQ Mobile filed for insolvency last week after BenQ said it would withdraw funding.

BenQ Mobile has continued to lose both money and market share.

This is despite BenQ investing 840m euros ($1bn; �570m) in the Germany-headquartered unit since it bought the business in the summer of 2005.

'Unacceptable'

Siemens said its senior managers would be donating 35m euros to the hardship fund for BenQ Mobile staff.

"We find BenQ's course of action in Germany unacceptable and are helping as much as we can," Siemens chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld told German newspaper Bild Zeitung.

"If BenQ leaves the staff standing in the rain, we want to help actively and energetically, and indeed fast."

Despite Mr Kleinfeld's strong words against BenQ, critics of Siemens say the firm was wrong to sell off its loss-making mobile phone unit in the first place.

They say the German industrial conglomerate should have tried to turn the mobile phone business around itself instead of washing its hands of the unit.

BenQ Mobile's products are labelled BenQ-Siemens.