A former senior staff of an agent for Intel Central Processing Units (CPUs) and two senior executives of a trading company were today (Wednesday) charged by the ICAC for their alleged involvement in a HK$5 million bribery scam in relation to the supply of CPUs for broadband service.

Yu Tak-kwong, 37, former sales manager of Arrow/Components Agent Limited (Arrow); Chang Chang-hua, 38, sales manager of Maxcom Electronic Limited (Maxcom); and Hong Hui-wan, 39, financial controller of Maxcom, will appear at 9:30 am in Eastern Court this Friday (August 31) to face a total of 33 sample charges.

The defendants were arrested by the ICAC in December last year as a result of an investigation into a corruption complaint.

ICAC enquiries revealed that Chang and Hong had been placing orders of CPUs with Yu on a regular basis.

Chang and Hong had allegedly paid Yu bribes equivalent to about 10 per cent of the purchase value, to ensure the supply of the desired Intel models which could accommodate broadband service.

Sixteen of the charges allege that Yu had accepted HK$3,617,906.6 and US$209,884 (about HK$1,637,095) from Chang and Hong as rewards for selling CPUs to Maxcom.

Sixteen other charges allege Chang and Hong of offering the rewards to Yu for the same reason.

The three defendants also face a joint charge, which alleges that they had conspired to defraud Arrow by dishonestly:

- causing Arrow to supply goods to Maxcom at reduced prices;

- concealing from Arrow the fact that Maxcom had paid for the goods at the actual prices;

- filing misleading purchase orders which showed only the reduced prices; and

- obtaining and sharing the difference between the actual prices and the reduced prices.

The alleged offences took place between October 1, 1999 and August 15, 2000.

The three defendants have been released on bail, pending their court appearances this Friday.