Recently, ByteDance released the Notice of the Commission on Enterprise Discipline and Professional Ethics (No. 2, 2024), and dismissed 61 employees for four reasons: suspected of constituting a criminal offence, violating the integrity system, violating the conflict of interest system, and violating the information security system.
For example, from December 2022 to May 2023, Mr. Lu, a former Tiktok employee, took advantage of his position to illegally receive huge benefits from external partners. From May to September 2022, former employee Gao used his position to illegally introduce a service provider and received a total of 40000 yuan in benefits from the service provider. Multiple employees take advantage of their job positions to provide assistance and benefits to external personnel, as well as engage in illegal reimbursement, taxi taking, and housing subsidies using false materials.
In recent years, Internet companies, including ByteDance, have intensively carried out internal anti-corruption rectification.
Taking the ByteDance as an example, the official account of “Tiktok Group” released the Anti fraud Notification of Tiktok Group in 2023, which said that Tiktok Group attached great importance to operating in accordance with laws and regulations, constantly improved the construction of the system, and increased the fight against commercial bribery, job occupation and other fraud. In 2023, Tiktok Group investigated and dealt with 177 cases of fraud and irregularities, of which 136 were dismissed for violating the red line of integrity, and 23 were transferred to the judicial authorities for handling suspected crimes.
In addition, Tencent Group previously disclosed that throughout 2023, the Tencent Anti Fraud Investigation Department discovered and investigated more than 70 cases of violating the Tencent High Voltage Line. More than 120 people were dismissed for violating the Tencent High Voltage Line, and nearly 20 people were transferred to public security organs for processing on suspicion of committing crimes. Including Gao from the former CSIG Cloud Business Development Department and Wang from the former CSIG Cloud Product Department, who, during their tenure, illegally occupied company assets by taking advantage of their position and was transferred to the public security organs for handling on suspicion of committing a crime. Zhang, from the CSIG Regional Business Department, took advantage of his position to illegally embezzle company assets and was transferred to the public security organs for handling on suspicion of committing a crime. During his tenure, Chen, the former PCG Animation Business Department, took advantage of his position to seek benefits for external companies and collected benefits from them. His behavior violated Tencent’s high-voltage line and he was blacklisted and will never be hired.
In December 2022, Tencent held an internal employee meeting. Tencent’s Chairman and CEO, Ma Huateng, stated that the issue of corruption within the Tencent Group was “truly alarming”. Many businesses could not be carried out because of management issues or business direction issues, but rather because the corruption loopholes were too large and the business was hollowed out.
In addition to ByteDance and Tencent, Meituan also released the document “Honest Cooperation, Meituan’s Zero Tolerance to Fraud and Corruption” in February this year, saying that in 2024 Meituan will continue to focus on promoting the whole chain governance of fraud and corruption in key areas such as commodity procurement, service procurement, product parts procurement, major business cooperation, and eliminate the systematic risk of fraud and corruption, and attach some suspected criminal cases in 2023, involving nine people in total, such as the case of Cai, a former employee of Meituan, who embezzled and profited from the company’s materials illegally in warehouse material management; Li, a former employee of Meituan Flash Purchase, received bribes from partner Liu through external personnel Dong during warehouse decoration procurement.
On March 12, 2021, the Didi Qingfeng WeChat official account released the Announcement on the Illegal Reception of Gifts from Suppliers by Cao, the former Didi employee, which said that during his tenure, Cao, the former Didi employee, took advantage of his position to receive gifts from two suppliers, domestic and foreign banquets, including Feitian Moutai, UAVs, etc., and provided “help” to suppliers in violation of regulations, causing losses to the company. Didi stated that it will terminate its labor contract with Cao without providing any economic compensation, and will add him to the company’s recruitment blacklist. Didi and its affiliated companies will never hire him, and the company requires Cao to submit all improper gains.
On February 24, 2021, it was reported that Zhao Moumou, the former vice president of Kwai and the head of the Community Content Research Institute, was arrested after leaving his job because of taking bribes, which was “extremely large”. On April 22, 2022, according to the first trial verdict published by the Beijing Court’s Trial Information Network, the former vice president of Kwai, Zhao Moumou, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and fined 700000 yuan for the crime of non state staff bribery and job embezzlement. The total amount involved in the case is over 7.56 million yuan.
On April 21, 2020, the Baidu Professional Ethics Committee reported a case of employee suspected of serious violations of discipline and law. After investigation, Wei Fang, former Vice President of Baidu Group, was found to be suspected of corruption and was transferred to the public security organs for legal processing. During his tenure at Baidu, Wei Fang was mainly responsible for financial matters. Previously, Robin Lee, the founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said in the internal live broadcast that Ma Huateng said (corruption) problems also existed in Baidu.
Jiang Xianliang, senior partner of Beijing Yinghe Law Firm and president of China Compliance Research Institute, said that from the summary and reflection on the internal problems of the company by the person in charge of the Internet platform company, it can be seen that the outstanding problems in the company’s governance are not limited to corruption cases and the severity of specific corruption behaviors, but rise to the analysis of the causes of corruption within the company, as well as the implementation of corporate strategies and other deep-seated governance issues. To fundamentally solve this problem, firstly, it is necessary to rely on effective compliance systems, and secondly, it is necessary to rely on a culture of integrity and compliance in the workplace, so that all systems can be effectively implemented.