TCS fires employees, bans vendors in bribes-for-jobs probe conclusion
MUMBAI, INDIA — IT services and consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) recently terminated 16 employees and blacklisted six staffing firms after concluding an internal investigation into a bribery scandal.
The inquiry was initiated in June due to a whistleblower complaint alleging that certain staffing firms bribed TCS executives to gain business. A week later, Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said the company had started investigating, firing six employees and banning six staffing firms.
In October, TCS announced that its investigation found 19 employees were involved in code of conduct breaches related to the recruitment process. Of these, 16 have been fired for policy violations and 3 were removed from recruitment roles but remain at TCS.
Furthermore, six associated staffing firms have been permanently barred from collaborating with TCS, per the company’s vendor management policy.
“We have completed our investigation. We have taken appropriate action against whosoever we believe violated our code of conduct. Actions differ based on the kind of violation but all actions have been taken and it’s closed,” said TCS CEO K Krithivasan.
TCS Chairman N Chandrasekaran explained that although the scale of favors cannot be quantified, the involved employees clearly demonstrated biases favoring certain firms
To prevent recurrence, TCS is strengthening governance, including regularly rotating recruitment personnel, enhancing analytics on suppliers, requiring more conduct compliance declarations from vendors, and increasing audits.
TCS reiterated that the issue does not involve financial fraud and has no monetary impact on the company.
“The issue relates to the breach of the company’s code of conduct by certain employees and vendors supplying contractors, and no key managerial person of the company has been found to be involved,” TCS stated.
