WIPO's $50 million bribery scandal

Cory Doctorow 7:09 am Sat Apr 16, 2005

The guy who got the $50,000,000 contract to renovate the HQ for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO — a place that bears the same relation to bad copyright that Mordor has to evil) paid a top WIPO official $270,000 shortly before winning the contract, though WIPO denies any wrongdoing.

A Swiss judge is investigating possible bribery charges involving a $50 million contract to renovate the headquarters of a Geneva-based United Nations agency, according to government documents and Swiss and American officials….

Investigators said the judge was trying to determine if Mr. Wilson had bribed a senior official at the United Nations agency to win the renovation contract. Edward Kwakwa, the agency's legal counsel, said Khamis Suedi, a top official at the intellectual property agency, acknowledged having received 325,000 Swiss francs, about $270,000, from Mr. Wilson, but said the money was from a private business venture that had no connection to the agency's construction contract. In an interview, Mr. Suedi said he had had nothing to do with the awarding of the contract.

(Thanks, Manon!)

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