NBN Co boss Quigley admits Costa Rica responsibility during AlcaLu scandal

Stan Beer
Friday, 13 May 2011 19:40

IT Policy - Regulation

The chief executive of NBN Co, Mike Quigley, has issued a statement admitting that he had jurisdiction of the region involved in a massive bribery scandal at Alcatel Lucent, while he was a senior executive of the company. In the statement, Mr Quigley indicates that he did not previously know he was responsible for Costa Rica, where the bribery incidents occurred.

The Australian newspaper has been investigating events surrounding a scandal involving Alcatel-Lucent employees bribing Costa Rican government officials to the tune of US$8 million in order to obtain contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with that country's carrier Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad between 2001 and 2006. Mr Quigley was global president and COO of Alcatel-Lucent during 2005 and 2006. Prior to that, he was boss of the French telco's US branch.

Alcatel Lucent has agreed to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission US$137 million to stop ongoing criminal investigations into the company's activities surrounding the affair. However, Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, which claims to have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the French telco's actions, is requesting that the plea bargain not be accepted by the District Court of Florida where the case is being heard.

In a statement released by NBN Co today, Mr Quigley said:

"I have today been advised by Alcatel Lucent that, contrary to previous advice, Costa Rica was among the many countries and territories in North, Central and South America that were part of my wide-ranging portfolio of responsibilities in the period March 2001 to January 2003, including operations involving approximately 15,000 staff.

"This, however, does not change the fact that I was not involved in any of these matters as is evident by the fact that in the course of their thorough investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice did not seek to interview me nor did they make an adverse finding in relation to me.

"I don't intend to comment further on this matter as it is the subject of ongoing legal proceedings in the US, to which I am not a party."

The Labor Federal Government, which appointed Mr Quigley and former Alcatel Lucent CFO Jean Pascal-Beaufret to their posts at NBN Co during Mr Rudd's watch as PM, is coming under increasing pressure from the Opposition for not questioning the two Alcatel-Lucent executives about the scandal prior to their appointment. The Government has claimed that it was unaware of the SEC investigations in the Alcatel-Lucent bribery scandal.

Alcatel was awarded a $70 million dollar contract to supply NBN Co with optical networking equipment for the NBN in June 2010.