Bengaluru : Infosys, which announced the firing of the finance chief of its back-office arm on Tuesday, is set to sack more employees at the unit to underline its intolerance for financial impropriety as it emerged that the episode which has put an unflattering spotlight on the firm involved one of its marquee clients, Apple. Sources familiar with the company’s thinking said at least six employees at one of Infosys BPO’s European subsidiaries will be asked to leave soon after internal investigations revealed that they had produced inflated invoices and purportedly overbilled Apple for many months.
The sources insisted the amount involved was “financially insignificant”, but the company was taking harsh action nevertheless to make an example of the case that has become an unwelcome distraction for new CEO Vishal Sikka as he seeks to recapture the IT bellwether status for Infosys. On Tuesday, Infosys announced that the chief finance officer of Infosys BPO, Abraham Mathews, had been fired “for not complying with its code of conduct”. The unit’s CEO, Gautam Thakkar, also said he would quit, taking moral responsibility. “We have always adhered to the highest corporate governance standards,” said a senior executive at Infosys.
“In the particular case, although it was a financially insignificant amount, the CFO should have reported the incident. For reasons best known to him, he did not and so we were left with no option,” the Infosys executive said. Infosys declined comment on the identity of the client at the centre of the case or elaborate the reasons for its punitive actions.
A company spokeswoman said on Wednesday: “The financial irregularities are not material in nature and the company has already made required disclosures. The company has taken disciplinary action on employees. We will not be able to comment on client-specific matters or on investigation as they are confidential in nature.”
An email sent to Apple remained unanswered. Meanwhile, details emerged that Infosys first unearthed the case of financial impropriety in September, following which it set up a panel to investigate it.
One source familiar with the investigation said that in this particular case, a small team of executives appeared to have made inflated invoices for the support provided by Infosys BPO, although these inflated invoices may not have been sent to Apple. After a month-long investigation, on Tuesday, the company said it was terminating the services of Mathews while Thakkar, who is one of the 13 executive vice-presidents at Infosys, will leave the company at the end of the month.
