ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA REPORT )
A former Ericsson executive has reportedly handed documents to the U.S. SEC alleging that the vendor paid out a huge number of bribes between 1998 and 2001 in order to secure contracts.
Ericsson has distanced itself from the allegations, suggesting any blame lies with rogue sales agents no longer used by the company.
According to local news outlet Dagens Nyheter, Liss-Olof Nenzell, who worked for Ericsson in Zurich, had a role in channelling large sums of money flowing from the company’s headquarters in Sweden via Switzerland to secret recipients all over the world.
A separate report by Radio Sweden (SR) claimed that several former Ericsson executives said that illicit payments were made to politicians and civil servants through a complicated system of front companies and offshore accounts.
“We’re talking hundreds of millions. To several countries,” said Nenzell, in the SR report.
In one incident, Ericsson is alleged to have bribed the then president of Costa Rica at a time when the company was bidding for a major telco contract.
In a statement emailed to Total Telecom, Ericsson said the reports refer to a time when the company made greater use of sales agents, compensating them through a payment scheme called the Worldwide Commission Scheme (WCS), which it stopped using in 2001.
“We cannot guarantee that individual employees have never, or will, act in violation of our code of business ethics,” Ericsson said; however, the company said it “disagrees with the claims made in the Swedish media that the company would have used bribes in a deliberate and systematic way.”
In June, it emerged that Ericsson’s practices in China were being probed by the SEC and the Department of Justice (DoJ). That same month, the company revealed that seven employees were being probed by Greek authorities investigating a defence deal won by Ericsson Microwave Systems in 1999.
On Thursday, Ericsson reiterated its zero tolerance policy regarding corruption and bribery.
The company said it always takes “appropriate action when we have information proving wrongdoing.”
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