IBM accused of bribery in China, South Korea [The Register]

Check out the official complaint here at the SEC website.

– – –

IBM accused of bribery in China, South Korea
SEC says thanks for $10m fine
By Timothy Prickett Morgan
Source – The Register, published March 18, 2011

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against IBM, alleging that the company paid bribes to government officials in China and South Korea to secure deals for the sale of mainframe and PCs among different government agencies.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Big Blue violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, the same act that ensnared Sun Microsystems in May 2009 and Hewlett-Packard in September 2010.

The FCPA, which you can learn about from Department of Justicehere, was passed by the US Congress and signed into law more than three decades ago after more than 400 companies admitted that they had paid over $300m in bribes to foreign government officials, politicians, and political parties in the mid-1970s to win deals. The law has been updated twice – in 1988 and again 1998 – and is enforced by the DoJ with the SEC doing the investigating.

Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Chinese Model, Corruption, Economics, Finance, South Korea, The Register