The internal anti-corruption campaign of major Internet companies continues. ByteDance's Corporate Discipline and Professional Ethics Committee recently reported a number of cases of employee violations of law and discipline, and dismissed all 61 employees involved. Among them, 4 people were investigated by the public security organs on suspicion of constituting criminal offenses. In recent years, "big factories" have successively conducted self-inspections and set off a wave of anti-corruption, mainly picketing and accepting bribes and embezzlement. Relevant analysis points out that the problem of internal corruption in major Internet companies is related to the internal governance structure of Internet enterprises. For example, the 12th Amendment to the Criminal Law, which has just been implemented, protects enterprises and entrepreneurs by cracking down on crimes that infringe on the interests of private enterprises.
Someone charges a huge "benefit fee"
In ByteDance's report, four people were investigated by the public security organs on suspicion of constituting criminal offenses. Among them, Lu, a former employee of Douyin, took advantage of his position to illegally accept huge benefits from external partners. On January 26 this year, Lu was investigated by the public security organs and taken compulsory measures of criminal detention. At present, in addition to dismissing Lu, ByteDance has also cancelled Lu's options and year-end bonus qualifications, and synchronized the Sunshine Integrity Alliance and the Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance.
In the criminal case, there is also Gao Moumou, a former employee of life services, who took advantage of his position to introduce service providers in violation of regulations, and accepted a total of 40,000 yuan in benefits from service providers. It is reported that Gao Moumou was suspected of accepting bribes by non-state functionaries, and was placed on file for investigation by the public security organs on January 17 this year and was released on bail pending further investigation. Zhou, a former employee of Douyin Live, abused his work authority and made a profit. In addition, Cao Moumou, a former outsourced employee of product R&D and engineering architecture, used a virtual account in violation of regulations to cooperate with external agencies to brush up on Douyin accounts and obtain illegal income. On suspicion of illegal business operations, Cao Moumou was investigated by the public security organs in March this year and taken compulsory measures of criminal detention.
According to media reports, in addition to criminal offenses, 32 employees took advantage of their job positions to provide assistance and accept benefits from outsiders, as well as used false materials to make illegal reimbursements, illegally take taxis, and obtain housing subsidies, and ByteDance dismissed them. Eight employees violated ByteDance's conflict of interest system by failing to declare and recuse themselves from specific related parties in business cooperation, and using business opportunities to make profits for themselves or their specific related parties. In addition, 17 people were found to have illegally acquired, stored, or leaked internal company information, and handed over the company's internal systems containing sensitive data to outsiders.
Exchange traffic for profit
As early as March this year, ByteDance internally reported anti-fraud violations for the whole year of 2023. It shows that in 2023, Douyin Group will investigate and deal with a total of 177 cases of fraud violations, of which 136 people were dismissed for violating the integrity red line, and 23 people were transferred to the judicial authorities for suspected violations and crimes.
In addition to ByteDance, in recent years, a number of "big factories" have issued notices to set off a wave of anti-corruption. According to the news released by Meituan, in 2023, Meituan assisted the public security in filing and investigating a total of 93 internal and external personnel suspected of crimes. At the same time, according to Tencent's Anti-Fraud Investigation Department, in 2023, Tencent's Anti-Fraud Investigation Department found 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 the public security organs for suspected crimes.
In the article "A Preliminary Study on the Construction of Anti-Corruption and Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Mechanisms for Internet Platform Enterprises: From the Perspective of the G20", it was pointed out that this is related to the huge traffic that is the core interest of Internet platform enterprises.
"Key employees in key positions hold the 'power of life and death' for suppliers connected to the company. In order to improve their dominant position among many competitors, many suppliers choose to bribe employees privately to make profits. The article said.
Tan Yu, general manager of Guangzhou Haike Information Technology Co., Ltd., which has cooperated with major Internet companies for many years, told Beijing Business Daily that the key problem for large factories to breed corruption is that the internal management and supervision mechanism is not perfect. Similarly, Jiang Weijie, vice president of the Criminal Defense Training Institute of Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, told reporters that the main reason for this is the change in the internal governance structure of the enterprise and the gradual decentralization of management power. "Based on the characteristics of high-speed information processing, Internet companies often adopt an internal power distribution model of flat management and short-link decision-making, fully decentralize employees, shorten the decision-making process, and employees have key powers such as platform entry review rights, platform rules and judgment rights, and traffic resource allocation rights, which can widely and directly affect third-party operators within the platform, which is easy to breed corruption. Jiang Weijie said.
Governance is advancing step by step
According to Tan Yu's observations, in recent years, the main problems of corruption in large factories have been the acceptance of favors and fees, and the embezzlement of positions.
Judging from previous years, the "2022 Internet Anti-Corruption and Anti-Fraud Report" shows that more than 230 cases of corruption and fraud were exposed in 2022, involving 37 enterprises and more than 400 people. Among them, bribery is the most frequent, followed by embezzlement. In addition, common corruption and fraud behaviors include serious violations of company regulations/violation of the company's high-voltage lines, defrauding the company of money/illegal arbitrage of wages, tax evasion, bribery, embezzlement of public funds, forgery of documents, fraud, disclosure of trade secrets, illegal business operations, etc.
The main problem of internal corruption in major Internet companies this year is similar to that of previous years. Among the nine typical cases disclosed by Meituan, Meituan Optimal and Little Elephant Supermarket were involved in two fraud and corruption incidents, and the main crime was accepting bribes from partners. At the same time, among the 17 cases reported by Tencent in 2023 that were dismissed, transferred to justice, and adjudicated by the court due to commercial bribery or embezzlement, most of the cases involved the illegal misappropriation of company assets by using their positions to facilitate the illegal embezzlement of company assets.
For example, in the case reported by Tencent, Gao Qiyuan, the former CSIG Cloud Business Development Department, and Wang Qi, the former CSIG Cloud Product Department, took advantage of their positions to illegally embezzle the company's assets during their employment. After trial, Gao Qiyuan was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to four years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 yuan, while Wang Qi was sentenced to three years and six months in prison and fined 80,000 yuan.
Under the many problems, the relevant governance is advancing step by step. In July 2023, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the "Opinions on Punishing and Preventing Crimes of Infringement of the Legitimate Rights and Interests of Private Enterprises by Internal Personnel of Private Enterprises in accordance with the Law, and Creating a Good Legal Environment for the Development of the Private Economy", mentioning that the punishment for corruption such as embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, and bribery committed by internal personnel of private enterprises will be increased in accordance with the law.
In addition, Jiang Weijie pointed out that the Amendment (12) to the Criminal Law, which will come into effect on March 1, 2024, expands the crimes of illegally operating the same type of business, illegally making profits for relatives and friends, favoritism and fraud, and selling corporate assets to private enterprises.
"In recent years, with the development and changes of private enterprises in the mainland, these crimes have also begun to appear and grow in private enterprises, especially the personnel in key positions who use their power to deliberately 'damage enterprises for personal gain', use power for personal gain, transfer and infringe on the interests of enterprises through various covert methods, and cause major damage to enterprises and entrepreneurs. Jiang Weijie introduced that the amendment is aimed at the crime of infringing on the interests of private enterprises, and protecting enterprises and entrepreneurs by cracking down on crime is also to legally put down the requirements for equal treatment of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Lu Yang Ran Lili