[Ecommerce] US seeks probe of bribery allegations at WIPO

[Manon Ress]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c50d8c42-b8e3-11d9-bfeb-00000e2511c8.html

US seeks probe of bribery allegations at UN agency
By Frances Williams in Geneva
Published: April 29 2005 20:31

us_unThe US has called for a full investigation by the World
Intellectual Property Organisation into allegations of bribery
concerning the award of a SFr70m contract for a building renovation project=
.

The allegations, which are being examined by a Geneva judge, centre on
Michael Wilson, a Ghanaian businessman and former vice-president of
Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspection company implicated in the United
Nations oil-for-food scandal.

The case is the latest controversy to blight the UN after an independent
commission criticised links between Cotecna and Kojo Annan, the son of
the UN secretary-general. Mark Lagon, US deputy assistant secretary of
state for international organisation affairs, told the FT the Wipo case
=93needs to be seriously investigated=94.

The US and other governments voiced their dissatisfaction with the UN
intellectual property agency's handling of the affair when Kamil Idris,
its director-general, met 14 UN donors earlier this week.

The Swiss investigation, has established that Mr Wilson was paid
SFr4m-SFr5m ($3.4m-$4.2m, =802.6m-=803.3m, =A31.8m-=A32.2m) by a consortium=
 of
three Geneva companies B=E9ric, Perret and Seydoux-DMB in connection with
their winning bid for the Wipo contract.

Jean-Bernard Schmid, the Geneva judge in charge of the investigation,
told the FT the payment to Mr Wilson had aroused his suspicions, because
it went well beyond a normal consultancy fee and did not appear in the
consortium's costings for the project.

He later found that Mr Wilson had transferred SFr300,000 to the account
of Khamis Suedi, a Tanzanian assistant director-general at Wipo and
special adviser to Mr Idris. Mr Wilson was unavailable for comment.

Edward Kwakwe, Wipo's legal counsel, said Mr Suedi had told the judge
and Mr Idris that he and Mr Wilson were long-time business associates
and that the payment was linked to a private venture.

He added that Mr Suedi had not been involved inthe award of the
contract, which had been handled =93correctly=94.

Mr Suedi has claimed that his association with Mr Wilson was approved by
the previous Wipo director-general, the late Arpad Bogsch.

US officials said this week they were not satisfied with Wipo's response
to the allegations, including the =93mutually arranged departure=94 of Mr
Suedi from Wipo this month.


--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC PO Box 19367,
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