In Depth: Court Sounds Alarm About Corruption in Big Tech

White paper warns that graft at China’s internet firms is especially damaging — due to their financial scale and social influence

“Staff at internet firms can be as greedy as disgraced officials,” a compliance director of a leading company told a Beijing forum on corruption on May 15.

A white paper on graft at internet firms was released ahead of the forum by the Haidian District People's Court, one of the organizers. It revealed that in the four years through 2024 the court handled 127 criminal cases involving corruption in the industry. The district hosts many internet companies’ offices, both headquarters and local branches.

The total amount involved in these cases, many of which include bribery and embezzlement charges, exceeded 305 million yuan ($42 million). Some three-quarters of the cases were at “major” firms, accounting for more than 184 million yuan. The average amount per case exceeded 1.97 million yuan.

The white paper argued that corruption at internet firms is a particularly serious matter — both due to the vast quantity of cash that flows through the sector, but also due to the social influence of firms that mediate how hundreds of millions of people interact with cyberspace every day. It also pointed out that most cases never make it to court, as the cost of litigation and risk of bad publicity means many cases are handled internally.

Small roles, big graft

The corruption cases described in the white paper weren’t distributed evenly. The vast majority of cases — some 82%