Oracle Confirms India Head Has Quit, Denies Report It Was Over Bribery Allegations

Oracle Corporation confirmed on Thursday that Sandeep Mathur, managing director of the company’s Indian subsidiary, Oracle India Pvt. Ltd., has quit, but denied a report that his exit was linked to allegations of bribery.

“Sandeep Mathur has resigned from Oracle,” the company said in an email to International Business Times. "Any article asserting that Sandeep Mathur resigned from Oracle India due to bribery charges is defamatory and untrue."

Mathur has been in the computer software industry for more than two decades. He became vice president at Oracle in 2003 and had been Oracle India’s managing director from March 2011, according to his profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn. He could not immediately be reached on his mobile phone.

The Times of India newspaper reported Wednesday that Mathur's departure earlier this month was linked to an unnamed whistleblower’s allegations that one of the company’s distributors had violated its contract rules to secure a contract from the police department of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The newspaper cited “multiple sources,” but didn’t name them.

In August 2012, the Redwood, California, company paid a $2 million penalty to settle a case after the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission charged Oracle with “violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by failing to prevent a subsidiary from secretly setting aside money off the company's books that was eventually used to make unauthorized payments to phony vendors in India.”

Oracle, in its emailed statement to IBTimes, said: “Oracle India maintains the highest standards and practices to enforce compliance with all laws and our company's strict compliance policies.”