中國建設銀行總裁被控收賄的案子愈演愈烈，多家美國知名公司被控行賄。如果這些美國公司知情行賄一事，則違反美國「境外貪腐行為法」。
named in China bribe verdict
By David Barboza
The New York Times
Three large multinational companies were named in a court verdict that sentenced the former head of China Construction Bank to 15 years in prison for accepting more than $500,000 in bribes, according to a copy of the court records obtained Thursday.
International Business Machines, NCR and Hitachi were named and identified as having worked through a Chinese contact named Zou Jianhua in an effort to sell information technology services to the huge state-owned bank in 2003 and 2004.
The 20-page verdict, handed down by the No. 1 Intermediate Court in Beijing last month, said that while he was chairman of China Construction Bank, Zhang Enzhao met with senior managers from IBM and NCR on multiple occasions to enrich his longtime friend, Zou, who was acting as a middleman between the bank and several companies.
The court verdict said that Zou had collected large "service fees" from IBM and NCR and that Zou later passed valuable gifts on to the bank chairman, including a massage chair, a pair of Tiffany watches and a luxury apartment in Shanghai worth about $330,000.
If American companies knowingly made gifts or large payments to Chinese officials to win or influence business, they could be prosecuted in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
In announcing the sentence against Zhang for accepting bribes, the Beijing court verdict cited the testimony of several former and current employees of IBM, NCR and Hitachi.
The court verdict also said that Zou had testified that "in order to make himself famous in the IT industry and make a large amount of money, he arranged meetings between Zhang and senior managers from IBM and NCR."
Zhang, who was named to the top position at the bank in 2002, resigned from it in March 2005 after a U.S. lawsuit accused him of accepting a $1 million bribe from an American company called Fidelity Information Services.
His resignation came seven months before China Construction Bank went public in a $9 billion stock offering in Hong Kong. Zhang was sentenced last month in Beijing and did not appeal his sentence.
IBM and NCR, which are both based in the United States, and Hitachi of Japan have all denied having knowledge of any bribes paid to Zhang.
The contents of the verdict had been reported earlier by Chinese media, and cited by the International Herald Tribune, but the companies said they could not confirm that they had been named because they had not seen it. However, a copy of the verdict obtained Thursday clearly identifies all three.
In response to previous reports about the verdict, the companies said in separate statements that they were looking into the matter.
It is unclear whether IBM or NCR won large contracts from China Construction Bank while Zhang was chairman. But IBM executives have said that China Construction Bank is a client.
The court verdict said that Zhang had recommended Hitachi for a contract but that the company did not win that particular deal.
Executives of China Construction Bank declined to comment Thursday on the case, saying only that Zhang had resigned from the bank for "personal reasons."
NCR said last month that Zou had a marketing-agent agreement with the company but was required to conduct business in a lawful manner. NCR, which is based in Ohio, said the company no longer works with Zou.
The case began in late 2004 when Grace & Digital Information Technology, a consulting company based in Beijing, filed a lawsuit in the United States against Fidelity Information Services, accusing it of failing to pay Grace & Digital $58 million for helping secure a large software contract.
Grace & Digital executives alleged that instead of fulfilling a software contract that dated back to 2001 but was temporarily suspended, Fidelity switched to using Zou as its middleman in 2002 to handle the software contracts and to negotiate with the bank and its new chairman, Zhang.
In the lawsuit, Grace accused Fidelity of paying bribes to Zhang through Zou.
Fidelity, a division of Fidelity National Financial, is not mentioned in the Beijing court’s verdict. Lawyers for Fidelity said that Zou had worked as a Fidelity consultant and that he had helped Fidelity win a $14 million software deal with China Construction Bank.
The lawyers for Fidelity said that they had been introduced to Zou by IBM. They also said that Zou was a consultant working for a Hong Kong company called Prosten Technologies, and that after Fidelity won its $14 million contract, Fidelity made a $1 million payment to Prosten.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida, Grace alleged that Fidelity paid for Zhang and other banking executives or their family members to travel to the United States, Europe and China on vacation, often accompanied by Zou.
The lawsuit also says that Fidelity reimbursed Zou for expenses that included shopping sprees in Hong Kong and other cities with bank officials or their families and that Zou gave Zhang the luxury apartment in Shanghai shortly after Fidelity paid his company, Prosten.
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