Chinese TV and appliance brand Hisense is facing fraud corruption investigations in several Countries including Australia and Austria, with the Company admitting in leaked documents that “large loopholes” exist in the internal control systems of the Company.
In Australia one senior Company executive is accused of stealing up to $3.37M while also employing a relative, who had been working in an Oakleigh Victoria coffee shop being paid cash in hand on a $90,000 contract.
In Austria the former Financial Manager of Hisense Austria has been accused of “tampering” with internal financial records as retailers in Europe closed down due to COVID delaying payments to the Company.
An internal Hisense fraud conference called to report on the level of “fraud and corruption” among employees working at the Chinese-run Company was told that, in order to cover up poor fund collections and conceal overdue payments by retailers in Europe, the former Finance Manager instructed the credit controller to tamper with the due date of 1,002 invoices.
According to leaked documents, 207 retailers were involved with tampered invoices exceeding more than $830,000.
At the time the average payment of invoices by European retailers had blown out to 156 days.
The longest outstanding invoice was 736 days.
Both the Australian and Austrian executives are still listing their job roles as working for Hisense, despite both executives having been terminated.
Currently, ChannelNews is also investigating what has been described as “wage theft” among employees at the Australian operation, which suffered from a high turnover of staff. We have been told that tens of thousands was paid out by Hisense Australia following an internal investigation.
