Firms set up internal investigation over Apple bungs

TWO ASIAN VENDORS are running internal investigations after being implicated in Apple bungs to favour suppliers.

According to Reuters, Taiwan's Pegatron, an offshoot of Asustek and JLJ Holdings in Singapore were investigating employees. Both companies were fingered after Paul Devine, an Apple supplies manager was arrested on Friday 13 August in the US. Devine has pleaded not guilty for allegedly offering favours to certain suppliers in exchange for "legal fees". It doesn't get much dodgier that that.

Asustek set up Pegatron so it didn't cannibalise its own business and was manufacturing plastic cases for Ipods and Iphones. "We are investigating the case now and feel sorry about this," Jonathan Chang, a deputy spokesman at Pegatron told Reuters.

JLJ Holdings has confirmed that a former employee, Jin Li, was named in the investitagation.

In total, Devine has managed to rack up six different companies accused of accepting kickbacks. Quite an impressive feat given some of them weren't even supplying Apple components directly.

A source at Cresyn, another company implicated in the bung-backs, told Reuters that it was, of course, all completely above board.

"We accepted his offer and received general information about US markets, and in return we offered him a small consulting fee. But this was based on a legal contract we made with him in 2007," it said µ