Shanghai-VW has bribery accusations thrown its way
From CBU Auto:
HANGHAI – Top executives of Shanghai-Volkswagen are suspect of corruption involving ¥142 million ($20.88 million), reports Jingji Guancha Bao or Economic Observer.According to a letter signed by five senior executives who work under the Shanghai Automotive Industry (Group) Corp. (SAIC) circulating on the Internet since September, several former and current executives of Shanghai-Volkswagen, including former president Liu Jian (killed in a test drive accident on July 17) and his successor, current president Zhang Hailiang, allegedly took large sums of briberies from suppliers, contractors, corporate training and advertising.
The two reporters of Economic Observer tried to contact the five informants but only received response from Wang Hongyan, senior manager of marketing at Shanghai-Volkswagen. Wang declined to respond directly during a telephone interview on November 30, but said “this is not a personal issue and please contact the public relations department for further information.”
The five people who signed the public letter were Wang Xiaoqiu, former vice president of SAIC Passenger Cars; Yu Qionggen of SAIC-IVECO-Hongyan; Gu Yudi of SAIC Passenger Cars; Wang Hongyan of Shanghai-Volkswagen; and Ling Xiaowei who is a family member of a Shanghai-Volkswagen employee.
The public letter claimed that the real situation “is far more serious.”
Economic Observer said a Shanghai-Volkswagen responsible person denied the accusation. A Shanghai-Volkswagen insider told Economic Observer that the company had reported the allegation to the public security bureau, but this has not yet been confirmed by Shanghai-Volkswagen.
Earlier in October, Chen Zhixin, SAIC executive vice president and general manager of SAIC Passenger Cars, reportedly was investigated for alleged economic crime. But the news was flatly denied by the SAIC’s public relations department.
Economic Observer notices that many of the circulated articles and the public letter about the corruption charge have been removed from the Internet.
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No real surprises. It is going on at lots of large companies in China. That is how businese is done here.
I was at the SHVW showroom to buy the VW Tiguan. The sales team demanded RMB40,000 extra (in exchange for accessories purchase) for the top range model. No extra pay, no car.
For the non-top range, an extra RMB30,000. I then asked them what’s the ‘accessories’ difference for the 30K and 40K. They said there’s no difference. Just that there’s a high demand for top of the range model, hence the higher fees that one need to fork out.
That’s open corruption to me.
Maybe it’s all bad karma to these top official at Shanghai VW. Serve them right. Ironically, their former President was killed in a Tiguan test drive accident.
Michael, that’s not really corruption – that’s just Supply and Demand economics.
If people will pay that much for the car then they will sell it for that, its not bad – just exploitative. Welcome to capitalism.
Yup, while unethical, I don’t believe there is a law here against charging over list price/MSRP for new cars.
Remember when the Prius was first introduced in the US? The same thing happened there.