fired employees
WASHINGTON (awp/afp) – The computer group Microsoft, implicated by a former whistleblower employee who denounced bribery practices in the Middle East and Africa, said on Saturday that it had already investigated the case. and taken the necessary measures, including dismissals.
Microsoft was implicated by a former executive in an interview with the Wall Street Journal and in an essay published Friday by the Lioness site, which publishes testimonials from whistleblowers.
This employee claims he was fired after working for the tech giant in Africa from 1998 to 2018 where he observed that Microsoft employees were involved in corruption schemes in several countries in the region.
According to him, these maneuvers used local partner companies to help sell the company’s products.
When questioned, Microsoft said on Saturday that it had “already investigated these allegations which date back several years” and “believe they have resolved them”.
“We have been cooperating with government agencies to resolve any issues,” Becky Lenaburg, vice president and assistant general counsel at Microsoft, said in a statement to AFP.
“We have taken steps, including parting ways with employees and partnerships as part of our investigations,” continued the group’s manager, who says “we are committed to doing business responsibly.”
“We always encourage anyone to report anything they see that may violate the law, our policies or our ethical standards,” she added.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the employee whistleblower submitted his suspicions to the US stock market watchdog, the SEC, in early 2019. He claimed in filings, according to the newspaper, that Microsoft had been “engaged since several years of endemic corrupt practices”.
According to the site The Verge, the employee estimates that these practices would have involved more than 200 million dollars each year in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
vmt/led