Monday, August 22, 2005

Recent corruption cases involving China and U.S.-based multinational corporations:

2004: Lucent Technologies Inc. fires its China president and several other top officers shortly after Chinese media reported that the executives were found by internal auditors to have bribed officials at state-owned telecommunications companies.

December 2004: InVision Technologies, a California manufacturer of airport security screening systems, pays an $800,000 fine after admitting that its distributors in China, Thailand and the Philippines had bribed government officials to gain sales.

May 2005: Diagnostic Products Corp., a Los Angeles-based medical equipment firm, surrenders $2 million in profits to settle a case in which the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company's Chinese subsidiary with handing out $1.6 million in bribes at state-owned Chinese hospitals.

August 2005: The SEC opens an informal inquiry after a lawsuit filed in Monterey County, Calif., alleges that the head of state-owned China Construction Bank and his associates took $1 million in bribes disguised as consulting fees from a U.S.-software company, Alltel Information Services.