In early February, Tencent's anti-fraud investigation department released an anti-fraud circular that sparked heated discussions involving 26 internal employees who violated company regulations and 37 external companies involved in the case.
On November 4, for the first time, the Beijing court trial network simultaneously published the first-instance criminal judgment and the second-instance criminal verdict of one of the typical cases. According to the judgment, Zhao Mouwei, assistant general manager of the mobile business products department of Tencent pcg (platform and content business group), took advantage of his position to accept travel services paid by suppliers for a total of 730,210 yuan, and was sentenced to one year and two months in prison and fined 60,000 yuan.
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that the agency company involved in the case was mainly engaged in the advertising business of major Internet manufacturers, and the person in charge had previously been sentenced for bribing the former head of the Ministry of Commerce of today's headlines.
In recent years, more and more Internet manufacturers have been exposed to corruption cases, and most of them are related to third-party companies.
The former assistant general manager of App Bao received more than 700,000 bribes
Sentenced for bribery of non-State agents
At the beginning of February this year, Tencent's anti-fraud investigation department released a list of 22 typical cases and 37 external companies involved in violations of the "Tencent high-voltage line" within the group since the fourth quarter of 2019.
One of the notices said that Zhao Mouwei, assistant general manager of pcg's mobile commercial products department, took advantage of his position to seek benefits for suppliers, collected supplier benefit fees and repeatedly accepted domestic and foreign travel arranged by the supplier, and his behavior violated the "Tencent high-voltage line" and has been dismissed by the company. At the same time, Zhao Mouwei was transferred to the public security organs for handling because of suspected crimes. However, the specific details and amount were not disclosed.
According to public information, pcg business group was established in 2018, responsible for the integration and development of the company's Internet platform and content culture ecology, including the integration of social platforms such as QQ and qq space, and traffic platforms such as Yingbao and browsers, as well as content services such as news information, video, sports, live broadcasting, animation, and film, to promote the cross-platform and multi-form development of IP and create a massive high-quality digital content experience for more users.
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that on November 4, the Beijing Court Trial Network published for the first time the first-instance criminal judgment and the second-instance criminal ruling of the case.
According to the judgment of the first instance, after trial, it was ascertained that between April 2017 and July 2018, defendant Zhao Mouwei worked in the mobile business product center of Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tencent"), and took advantage of his position in charge of commercial advertising matters of App Treasure to seek benefits for Beijing Vientiane in the course of business cooperation with Beijing Vientiane Xindong Mobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Vientiane"). And accept free travel services paid by Yi Mouchuan, then general manager of Beijing Vientiane. After investigation, the above-mentioned tour expenses totaled RMB730,210.
In the first instance, the court convicted defendant Zhao Mouwei of accepting bribes from non-state workers and sentenced him to one year and two months in prison and a fine of RMB 60,000.
In addition, defendant Yi Mouchuan was convicted of bribing non-state workers and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 yuan; together with the previously sentenced fixed-term imprisonment of three years and six months, a fine of 80,000 yuan was imposed, and it was decided to carry out a fixed-term imprisonment of four years and a fine of 100,000 yuan.
The second instance upheld the original judgment.
Founded in 2014, Beijing Vientiane is a 100% shareholding subsidiary of Wanrun Technology (002654.sz), and its main business scope is technology development, technology transfer, technical consultation, technology promotion, technical services, etc.
Equity penetration chart
The agency involved in the case is mainly engaged in advertising
The former head of the commerce department of UC, who previously paid bribes today, has been sentenced
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that as early as May 2019, Yi Mouchuan, the former legal representative of Beijing Vientiane Company, had withdrawn from the company's directorship for accepting bribes. Combing found that Yi Mouchuan was also involved in another Internet giant, ByteDance's today's headline anti-corruption case.
According to the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing, in October 2019, Yi Mouchuan was convicted of bribing Wang Mou, an employee of today's headlines.
Wang Mou is the head of the business team of today's headline ug (advertising placement), responsible for finding, recommending, selecting advertising agents for the company, and carrying out business communication with the above agents.
According to the first-instance judgment, Wang said that at the end of 2016, the company intended to place a 2017 advertisement on Tencent App Bao, and after the initial bidding, it was found that Yi Mouchuan's company had achieved good results among the five or six companies that bid together and were in the upstream position.
Wang also said that an employee of Tencent App Bao also recommended Beijing Vientiane Company to him, saying that "Yi Mouchuan has made a lot of efforts in our partners and has a good relationship with us Tencent." Therefore, Wang mou decided to make Beijing Vientiane as an advertising agency in 2017. The rebate that Beijing Vientiane gave today's headlines was 4%.
After the expiration of the one-year contract, today's headlines want to continue to place ads in Tencent App Treasure in 2018, due to the increase in volume and the increase in advertising volume, at least two agents are needed. After tencent application Bao employees learned about it, they still indicated that "Yi Mouchuan used to do a very good job and made a lot of efforts", or explicitly or implicitly said that Yi Mouchuan had a very good relationship with them. Therefore, Wang mou decided to make Beijing Vientiane as an advertising agency in 2018.
In the process of cooperation, Yi Mouchuan has always said to Wang, "I remember the money that should be given to you." At first, Wang said "I don't use this money", but by March 2018, Wang told Yi Mouchuan the bank card number of Lu Mouchuan and asked him to punch the money into this card.
In order not to leave traces on WeChat, Wang used mata software to send Lu's bank account number to Yi Mouchuan, and then on May 15, 2018, Yi Mouchuan transferred a total of 2.35 million yuan in three times. After Yi Mouchuan transferred the money, he also used the mata software to confirm whether he had received the money.
According to Yi Mouchuan's confession, the company's main business is digital marketing mobile advertising, in the app to help customers advertise, customers include Tencent, Baidu, Toutiao, etc., mainly represent Tencent app treasure, qq browser and other delivery platforms. In 2017 and 2018, the turnover was 1 billion yuan and 2 billion yuan respectively, of which the amount of Douyin, watermelon, volcano and other products under Today's Headlines in Tencent App Treasure was about 200 million to 500 million yuan, accounting for about one-fifth.
In the end, the Beijing Haidian District People's Court held in the second instance that between 2016 and 2017, defendant Wang took advantage of his position to introduce Beijing Vientiane Company as an advertising agent for Beijing ByteDance. Yi Mouchuan, a director and defendant of Beijing Vientiane Company, expressed his gratitude and gave Wang RMB 2.35 million by bank transfer.
In December 2019, the court convicted defendant Yi Mouchuan of bribing non-state workers and sentenced him to three years and six months in prison and a fine of RMB80,000. Defendant Wang was convicted of bribery by non-state workers and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.
In July 2021, while serving his sentence, Yi was found to have previously been suspected of accepting bribes from Zhao Mouwei, the head of Tencent's app treasure, so he was released for retrial.
Internet factories have become the hardest hit areas of corruption
The vast majority are associated with third parties
Red Star Capital Bureau has noticed that in recent years, more and more Internet manufacturers have been exposed to corruption incidents.
In 2021 alone, many Internet company executives have fallen, including Zhang Meng, producer of Tencent Video's film and television project, Mao Taotao, former senior public relations director of Weibo's brand marketing department, and Zhao Danyang, former vice president of Kuaishou.
According to incomplete statistics from the media leopard, in 2020, Tencent, Ali, Baidu, Meituan, Didi and other Internet companies have announced more than 200 corruption cases.
Analysis of the cases exposed by Internet manufacturers this year can be found that the vast majority of Internet anti-corruption cases are accompanied by violations by agents, suppliers and other third-party partners, including but not limited to accepting bribes from agents or suppliers, asking for money from third-party agents, cars, accepting kickbacks, and secretly providing "help" to stakeholders.
Of the 22 typical cases involving job encroachment and bribery that Tencent announced in February this year, 26 employees were notified for seeking benefits from suppliers or other external companies, involving multiple business units of PCG, including short videos, information operations, mobile application receipts, mobile business products, and browsing platform products.
In addition, in the "preferred first case" of the Meituan in mid-June this year, Ma Jun, the head of Shaanxi Province, took advantage of his position as a right to decide on joining the partners and was sentenced to accept bribes of 530,000 yuan; in late March, Gao Chuanfeng, a former ByteDance catering expert, also used his power to provide improper help and additional benefits to suppliers many times, and accepted bribes of 10.247 million yuan; on December 11, 2020, Shi Miao, former vice president of Cainiao Network, used his position to accept bribes of millions of yuan was notified by Ali Intranet.
The road to internet anti-corruption has also been increasing. In 2010, Alibaba established the Integrity and Compliance Department, and then joined forces with Country Garden, Fosun, Midea, SF, Shimao, Vanke and other enterprises to establish the China Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance. In recent years, Tencent has also set up an anti-fraud investigation team to publish the results of self-examination on a quarterly basis.
In August 2017, Meituan, together with Tencent, Baidu, JD.com, Walmart China and 14 other enterprises, established the "Sunshine Integrity Alliance", through the information sharing mechanism between enterprises, jointly refused to hire fraudulent employees and jointly refused to cooperate with bad businesses. As of November 2021, there are more than 400 member units of the Sunshine Integrity Alliance, more than 170 enterprises in the list of untrustworthiness, and more than 3,000 individuals.
Jiang Xianliang, president of the China Legal Association Enterprise Compliance Research Institute, said that the anti-corruption rules and regulations of Internet companies mainly involve two types of constraints: one is for the company's internal executives and employees, and the other is for the company's third-party partners. However, the main shortcoming of the current anti-corruption regulations for Internet enterprises is that the content of the regulations is not comprehensive and meticulous, and it is impossible to fully combine the operation to comprehensively sort out the compliance risk points.
Red Star News reporter Yu Yao intern reporter Cai Xiaoyi
Responsible editor Ren Zhijiang Editor Yang Cheng
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