En domstol i New York har netop offentliggjort en lydoptagelse, der afslører, at reklamebureauet Grey har snydt sine kunder for adskillige millioner kroner i form af kickback-aftaler.
For 11 år siden forlod en række chefer pludselig Grey London og Grey New York uden en ledsaget forklaring, men den er muligvis dukket op nu med båndoptagelsen.
Det viser selv nemlig, at bureauet systematisk ”glemte” at give kunder som Procter & Gamble, Mars, British American Tobacco og GlaxoSmithKline del i diverse rabatordninger for et beløb i omegnen af 50 millioner kroner.
Optagelsen stammer fra et møde i 1998 i London mellem den nye CEO, Steve Balmer, økonomichefen Roy Wilson og den afgående CEO, Roger Edwards.
Steve Balmer har netop gennemgået regnskaberne og indset, at noget ser forkert ud. Her er et uddrag fra samtalen:
Blamer: P&G is that much?
Wilson: Yep.
Blamer: Jesus… I’m telling you, the reality is you as the financial officer and me as the ceo and now Roger (presumably Edwards) could be sued. I mean, we’re cheating and stealing from our clients. That is the truth.
(Senere..)
Blamer: I believe we should return these discounts. I’m not going to, I can’t make that decision unilaterally…If those guys (senior management, in New York) say that we’re not going to do it, and we can keep the discounts… then I say, fuck it that’s crazy, send me a note, I want a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.
Edwards: Mars is such a vitriolic client, that if they did catch you doing that they would probably punish you very severely. They would take you back years, take a brand off you or something like that.
Blamer: Have they [clients] ever discovered that in an audit?
Wilson: No.
Blamer: And why is that?
Wilson: …I mean to be honest one has to be a bit surprised that none of them have ever specifically, eyeball to eyeball… and then asked the question, since it’s a clause in every one of our contracts, but…
De beslutter efterfølgende at forholde sig tavse, men vil fremover ændre forretningsproceduren.
Det er regnskabsmanden Wilson, der af frygt for at blive udpeget som syndebuk, som står bag optagelsen.
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