Baidu Inc vice-president Li Ming-yuan, who is considered by many as a potential successor to CEO Robin Lee, resigned following an internal probe by the company, which charged him of "economic corruption." On Nov. 4, Friday, the company sent a private email to its employees confirming three charges against Li.
In the email sent to employees, the company alleged that Li, 32, whom China's tech community often refers to as the "prince" of Baidu, was involved in massive economic dealings with the person in command of another firm that the Chinese search engine titan acquired recently, Reuters reported. However, the internal memo did not offer details regarding the company concerned or the precise amount involved.
While a spokeswoman of Baidu refused to comment on the issue, the news agency said that Li posted a statement on his WeChat account asserting that there was no "dishonest" dealing whatsoever. Describing Baidu's method of weeding out corruption as "fierce," Li stated that he was resigning after taking complete responsibility for what he portrayed was a "misunderstanding."
"Baidu is the company that trained me and the house I grew up in and (I) never ever thought of doing anything immoral," Li said in his WeChat social network post. On the other hand, Global Times quoted Baidu's letter to its employees as stating that despite being a senior employee of Baidu and making great contributions to the company, he has violated norms. It also warned that anyone found violating Baidu's rules would be dealt with strictly.
Baidu accused Li of engaging in a huge private economic exchange when he took part in an acquisition project of the company. Second, Li has been charged with engaging in massive economic exchanges in the gaming sector in his capacity as the company's vice-president.
The third charge against the "prince of Baidu" is that he failed to keep the company informed about his stakes in other companies having business transactions with the domestic search engine giant.
Li was perhaps engaged process of Baidu acquiring the mobile application store, 91 Wireless, in 2013. It is speculated that he started to have economic exchanges with 91 Wireless since then. Following the acquisition of the company, Li was made in charge of the Baidu mobile application distribution team.
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