Following the news that several high-ranking executives from WPP’s GroupM had been detained on bribery charges by the Shanghai police, one of those executives has now been fired by the British firm.
The person’s identity has not yet been disclosed, although Yao Lan, Group M China’s ex-head of Data Centre, Rycan Di, chief investment officer for China and Diana Hong, ex-general manager for Group M China have all been detained in recent days. It is not known at this stage whether they are still in custody.
The news follows a report by Campaign Asia-Pacific which claims that the charges may correlate to possible media broker activities, specifically relating to how rebates are distributed to agencies and their employees.
The agency’s China’s CEO and country managing director Patrick Xu was also understood to have been questioned in the raids on Friday (20th October), but has apparently not been charged at this stage.
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Responding to the dramatic developments, WPP has now issued its own statement in response to the arrests, saying: “Following the detention of a GroupM China executive on charges of bribery last week, we are cooperating with the authorities and conducting our own investigation with an independent third party.
“We cannot comment on the details of an active police investigation. However, we are terminating the executive’s employment with the company, and GroupM is suspending trade with any external organisation we understand to be part of the police enquiries.
It concluded: “We are absolutely committed to behaving in accordance with the law and our own code of conduct, and will take all necessary action to ensure this is the case within our business.”
