Watchdog: Mexican government should probe Wal-Mart

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By GALIA GARCIA-PALAFOX

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's federal government should investigate allegations of a vast bribery campaign by top executives of Wal-Mart's Mexican subsidiary to build stores across the country, the head of a watchdog group said Sunday.

Eduardo Bohorquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana, said international conventions obligate Mexico's government to get involved even though only local officials have been linked to the scandal.

"The laws in Mexico and the United States relating to bribery are in effect, so the practices (of legal business) should be the same in both countries," he said.

Government officials declined on Sunday to comment on the allegations contained in a New York Times report that said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) failed to notify law enforcement after its own investigators found evidence that millions of dollars in bribes had been paid in Mexico to spur the company's rapid expansion there.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120423/D9UACDP80.html

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A van covered by a mural sits parked outside a Walt-Mart Super Center in Mexico City, Saturday, April 21, 2012. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hushed up a vast bribery campaign that top executives of its Mexican subsidiary carried out to build stores across Mexico, according to a published report by the New York Times. Wal-Mart is Mexico's largest private employer. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

[47of74]

1. Heck our own Government should be checking out what they do here

[cstanleytech]

2. For some odd reason though I suspect the fine will not be enough of a punishment after all since

the stores are built now it will be easy enough for them to absorb unless of course Mexico seizes the stores are part of an illicit act.