In 2011 already an employee seconded to VimpelCom raised concerns of potential corruption to executives in Telenor and to Telenor's nominated board members at VimpelCom. This concern, however, was not shared with Telenor’s then CEO, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, until March 2014 and then to the Telenor board of directors in December 2014. The Norwegian state, Telenor's main shareholder, was not told until October 2015.
Following the report, Telenor reached an agreement for CFO Richard Olav Aa and General Councel Pal Wien Espen to resign. Its former representatives on Vimpelcom's board, Fridtjof Rusten and Ole Bjorn Sjulstad, who had been temporarily relieved of their responsibilities during the Deloitte review, will revert to their former positions in Telenor.
CEO Sigve Brekke said the company "acknowledges that on this occasion we were unsuccessful in handling an important concern according to Telenor’s ethical standards" and the group has initiated several measures to improve governance, compliance and transparency.
The VimpelCom review also prompted a wider review of how the company handles ethical issues and uncovered possible misconduct in other parts of the business. One case involves suspicions of financial crimes and has been reported to the local police. Telenor said the authorities asked it to not comment any further on the case at this point. The other case is from Thailand, where subsidiary Dtac’s internal audit uncovered deviations from the company’s guidelines relating to some site lease agreements. Further review will show if these agreements have been in accordance with existing guidelines. The review will be finalised at the end of 2016.
