WIPO's $50 million bribery scandal

The guy who got the $50,000,000 contract to renovate the HQ for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO — a place that bears the same relation to bad copyright that Mordor has to evil) paid a top WIPO official $270,000 shortly before winning the contract, though WIPO denies any wrongdoing.

A Swiss judge is investigating possible bribery charges involving a $50 million contract to renovate the headquarters of a Geneva-based United Nations agency, according to government documents and Swiss and American officials….

Investigators said the judge was trying to determine if Mr. Wilson had bribed a senior official at the United Nations agency to win the renovation contract. Edward Kwakwa, the agency's legal counsel, said Khamis Suedi, a top official at the intellectual property agency, acknowledged having received 325,000 Swiss francs, about $270,000, from Mr. Wilson, but said the money was from a private business venture that had no connection to the agency's construction contract. In an interview, Mr. Suedi said he had had nothing to do with the awarding of the contract.

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(Thanks, Manon!)