On 23 April, Baidu Group issued a notice on anti-corruption and fraud prevention, disclosing the handling of employees who violated laws and company regulations in 2025.
In 2025, Baidu Group investigated and dealt with 144 employees for violations of laws and regulations; of these, 33 were dealt with by the judicial authorities in accordance with the law, whilst 111 were disciplined by the company in accordance with its regulations. There are several notable cases in the notice: Chen, a former employee of the after-sales department of ACG Services, accepted bribes and was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison; others exploited their positions to embezzle company funds through means such as falsifying contracts and inflating expenses. Three of these cases were even included by the Supreme People’s Court as exemplary cases of corruption.
It is reported that between 2020 and 2025, Baidu Group investigated and dealt with a total of 707 employees for violations of laws and regulations. Of these, 123 were dealt with by the judicial authorities in accordance with the law; 342 were dismissed for serious disciplinary offences (including those dealt with by the judicial authorities); and 365 received internal disciplinary sanctions for disciplinary offences, resulting in the recovery of financial losses amounting to over CNY 52.76 million.
This is not merely an issue for Baidu alone, but a common challenge facing the entire internet industry. Major tech firms hold key advantages such as data flow, capital and resources; whether in business partnerships or project tenders, any degree of influence they wield can be used as a bargaining chip in quid pro quo arrangements.
According to statistics, there are three main areas within internet companies where corruption is particularly prevalent: logistics services, procurement departments, and R&D and product departments. Due to the differences in business lines, the formats of their corruption chains also differ. For logistics services, employees and executives can bring competitive advantages to certain enterprises through offline activities and other means. Meanwhile, these enterprises will compromise these employees and others through means such as financial bribery. As for the procurement and R&D departments, the former may accept kickbacks or designate specific suppliers, while the latter may sell the company’s core assets—such as algorithms and resource design frameworks—to external parties in exchange for financial gain.
Baidu’s anti-corruption announcement is a microcosm of the current trend towards strengthening internal governance within the internet industry. In recent years, leading companies have generally stepped up their anti-corruption efforts; this is not only a necessity for corporate ‘self-purification’ but also responds to the governance requirements of judicial authorities and industry organisations. At present, anti-corruption efforts within internet companies are shifting from ‘crackdown-style’ measures towards ‘systematic’ prevention. It is of vital importance for every enterprise to establish a comprehensive professional ethics supervision and anti-fraud system, based on four key dimensions—institutional frameworks, organisational structure, awareness and implementation, to ensure a division of responsibilities and full safeguards.
By Vivian Shi, Office Supervisor