The complaint also includes allegations that senior executives received real estate and “millions of dollars in cash” from suppliers.
International clothing brand Adidas has launched an investigation into allegations that some of its senior staff in China were involved in a large-scale bribery scheme worth “millions of euros”, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
The FT reported on Sunday that the investigation was launched after the company received a whistleblower complaint.
The anonymous letter, which claims to have been written by an “Adidas China employee,” accuses several of the company’s employees in China of accepting bribes from external service providers with which the company does business.
Citing people familiar with the investigation, the report said senior executives in other divisions also were suspected of receiving “millions of dollars in cash, real estate and other items from suppliers.”
He added that none of the accused have been named.
“While the authors of the anonymous letter have not presented any hard evidence of their corruption allegations, they appear to have sufficient knowledge of highly sensitive internal matters” to merit a thorough investigation, the report said.
In the letter, which was also shared on Chinese social media, the whistleblowers said company executives, including senior managers involved in the company’s marketing budget in China, were involved in the bribery.
Adidas confirmed it had received the anonymous complaint and said it was investigating the matter with outside legal counsel.
“Adidas takes any alleged compliance violations very seriously and is clearly committed to upholding legal, internal regulations and ethical standards in all markets in which we operate,” the company said in a statement in response to queries from Reuters.
Adidas said it could not provide further information until the investigation was complete.
The company has made some leadership changes in China in 2023 to try to turn around a business that has slumped during the pandemic.
It was once Adidas’ fastest-growing and most profitable market, but Chinese consumers have grown frustrated with the company in recent years over its refusal to buy cotton from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where human rights activists say it uses forced labor.
But the company said earlier this year that sales in China were recovering and it predicted double-digit growth.
The German sporting goods giant earlier said its sales in China rose 8 percent in the first quarter.
