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A worker
walks through the ''Action Alley'' at a new Wal-Mart store in
Chicago, January
24, 2012. The store will open on January 25, and it will be
Wal-Mart's largest
outlet in Chicago. (Credit:
Reuters/John Gress)
|
(Reuters) -
Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc squelched its own internal investigation of
allegations made by a former executive of its subsidiary in Mexico that the
Mexican division had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to grab market
dominance, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The paper
said in September 2005 a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an e-mail from a
former executive at the company's largest foreign unit, Wal-Mart de Mexico,
describing how the subsidiary had paid bribes to obtain permits to build stores
in the country.
Wal-Mart
sent investigators to Mexico City and found evidence of widespread bribery, but
Wal-Mart's leaders then shut down the investigation and notified neither
American nor Mexican law enforcement officials, the Times reported.
"We
take compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) very
seriously and are committed to having a strong and effective global
anti-corruption program in every country in which we operate," Wal-Mart
said in a statement.
The Times
reported that the former executive gave names, dates and bribe amounts, adding
that he knew so much because for years he had been the lawyer in charge of
obtaining construction permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico, or Walmex as the company
is known locally.
The Times
said the company found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling
more than $24 million.
Wal-Mart
also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico's top executives not only
knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart's
headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, the newspaper reported.
The Times
said that the company's lead investigator said there was reasonable suspicion
to believe Mexican and U.S. laws had been violated and had recommended an
expanded investigation, but that instead Wal-Mart's leaders shut it down.
None of
Wal-Mart de Mexico's leaders were disciplined, the report said.
Eduardo
Castro-Wright, whom the former executive identified as the driving force behind
years of bribery, was promoted to vice chairman of Wal-Mart in 2008, the paper
said.
Wal-Mart
declined to make him available for an interview.
"Many
of the alleged activities in The New York Times article are more than six years
old," the company said in a statement.
"We
are deeply concerned by these allegations and are working aggressively to
determine what happened."
(Nivedita
Bhattacharjee in Chicago and Will Dunham)
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