Motorola tried to bribe MTNL, BSNL officials  ( October '3,2003, The Economic Times)

Cocking a snook at the much-invoked US legislation, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) that criminalises bribery of foreign public officials, an executive of the US telecom giant Motorola sought to influence MTNL and BSNL with bribes, according to the CBI.

The apex investigating agency has registered cases against five persons, including an official of the telecom MNC on charges of unethical practices for business promotion by manipulating tenders of MTNL and BSNL.

Two officials of Nirvan Management Group, Rajiv Gupta and Sushil Kumar Mishra, two of Banglore-base United Telecom Limited, Dr Rao and Romy Sharma and Tarvinder Singh of Motorola, besides “unknown” officials of MTNL and BSNL have been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

It is not yet clear if the CBI will be seeking prosecution of Motorola or its representative, Tarvinder Singh under FCPA. The FCPA had been enacted in the wake of public uproar following the Lockheet bribery scam in Japan, which consumed the then Japanese prime minister too. The FCPA makes American companies laible for prosecution back home if the charges that they resorted to bribery and other means for business promotion can be proved. The chorus of complaints had also led to the signing of the convention by the Organisation of Economically Developed Nations (OECD) to discourage the practice of bribery in defence contracts.

The CBI FIR states that the Motorola representative, Tarvinder Singh sent an email to Rajiv Gupta of NMG, asking him to “use his personal influence so that the technical aspects of the Motoral bid are taken care of by the CDMA Technical Evaluation Committee of MTNL’’. The FIR claims that a payment of Rs 7.18 crore was recently cleared by MTNL to Motorala. However, MTNL Chairman cum Managing Director Narinder Sharma has said that the payment was made to Motorola for the services being provided for its Garuda Limited mobile services as part of the contractual payment.

The FIR also mentions “movement” of Rs 50 lakh allegedly paid by Romy Sharma of United Telecom Limited to Rajiv Gupta.The CBI claims that Sharma was to deliver an amount of Rs 50 lakh in cash to Sushil Kumar Mishra, Manager of Nirvan, which was to be onpassed to Rajiv Gupta. The information was shared with the Director General of Income Tax who recovered cash of Rs 50 lakh from Mishra.