'Walmart paid bribes for India forays'

WASHINGTON, October 19: After Louis Berger, now Walmart is under scanner of the Federal bureau for bribery to get into India. A high-profile federal probe into allegations of widespread corruption at Walmart Stores Inc.’s operations in Mexico has found little in the way of major offenses, and is likely to result in a much smaller case than investigators first expected, according to people familiar with the probe, the Wall Street Jourl reported on Monday.

According to the report published by the WSJ, the three-year investigation isn’t over, but most of the work has been completed, and it is possible the case could be resolved with a fine and no crimil charges leveled against individual Walmart executives, these people said.

As part of the same investigation, investigators found evidence of bribery in India, centering on widespread but relatively small payments made to local officials there, the people said. Walmart is likely to face U.S. foreign-bribery charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act over those payments, they said.

Walmart spokesman Greg Hitt declined to discuss the particulars of the investigation, but said the company is “cooperating fully with the government in this matter.”

Mr. Hitt added that adherence to anticorruption laws is “a key priority” for the retailer, which works with third-party compliance experts “as we continuously review and strengthen our programs around the world.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman would say only, “We have an active ongoing FCPA investigation and will decline to comment further.”

The Justice Department launched its investigation after a pair of 2012 New York Times articles about alleged bribes the world’s largest retailer by revenue might have paid in Mexico to obtain permits to build stores there, the people said. Mexico is home to about 20% of Walmart’s roughly 11,500 locations.

They said the federal findings so far largely match up with the results of an interl probe Walmart launched in the wake of questions from the New York Times.

Much of the suspected bribery investigators unearthed in India involves thousands of small payments to low-level local officials to help move goods through customs or obtain real-estate permits. The vast majority of the suspicious payments were less than $200, and some were as low as $5, the people said, but when added together they totaled millions of dollars.

The people said investigators found similar payments in Mexico, but the bulk of such activity seemed to be in India. In 2013 Walmart shelved plans to open retail stores in India by severing a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises Ltd., and instead decided to become solely a wholesaler there.

Because pelties under the FCPA are often connected to the amount of profit the alleged misconduct generated, the payments in India wouldn’t be likely to result in any sizable pelty, since Walmart’s operations there haven’t been particularly profitable, said people familiar with the matter. (Agencies)