A former Commonwealth Bank manager convicted of taking bribes for facilitating business deals with his employer participated in a scheme involving “corruption at the highest levels of the bank”, a Sydney court has been told.
Jon Waldron, former general manager of IT infrastructure engineering at the bank, was found guilty in May by a NSW District Court judge of seven counts of corruptly receiving almost $US2 million as a reward for smoothing the path for a US-based tech company to ink two deals with the bank.
Jon Waldron, second from left, outside the Downing Centre District Court on Wednesday.Credit: Kate Geraghty
The New Zealand-born Waldron was also found guilty of three counts of aiding and abetting a co-accused to receive bribes. He remains on bail and appeared at his sentence hearing on Wednesday.
Waldron’s trial heard that ServiceMesh Inc, a California-based cloud computing startup, supplied software services to the bank from 2009.
More than $US2 million paid
The Crown alleged the principal shareholder of ServiceMesh, Eric Pulier, paid more than $US2 million to Waldron and an IT executive manager at CBA in 2014 as a reward for helping ServiceMesh strike two software deals with the bank, in 2013 and 2014. Pulier has denied wrongdoing.
Waldron received the lion’s share of the money, the court has heard, and the payments were received without the Commonwealth Bank’s knowledge. His co-accused has already served a prison sentence.
“$$landed,” Waldron wrote in a text message to a ServiceMesh sales consultant on April 13, 2014, after meeting Pulier in Santa Monica, California on April 11.
The court heard this message was sent before the first payment of $US99,971.02 ($104,648.82 at the time) was transferred to Waldron’s CBA account on May 16, 2014.
Waldron had emailed his wife on December 21, 2013: “By the way, confirmed: $1.5 million.”
Waldron was dismissed from the bank after internal investigators discovered mystery payments into his CBA account.
Defence barrister Peter Lange, acting for Waldron, told the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney on Wednesday that the Crown alleged the scheme involved “corruption at the highest levels of the bank”.
However, Lange submitted during the sentence hearing that Waldron was not “the most culpable person” and “not the instigator”.
“Your honour does, in my submission, need to grapple with the issue of who instigated the offence; whether it was the idea of the offender … or whether the idea was brought to the offender, and he then became, I accept, based on your honour’s analysis, a willing participant in the scheme,” Lange told Judge Phillip Mahony.
“There’s no evidence, in my submission, that the corrupt scheme originated from [Waldron]. In my submission, your honour would conclude that he was not the instigator but those superior to him were.”
Lange argued Waldron should be subject to an Intensive Correction Order, a custodial sentence that is served in the community.
“An additional condition, for instance, of community service, of supervision, coupled with the imposition of an ICO is the appropriate outcome” in this case, Lange said.
He submitted the evidence before the court also demonstrated Waldron was acting in the interests of the bank even if he was conflicted because of the payment to him of undisclosed sums.
‘Highest level of offending’
THE BRIBES
The NSW District Court found Waldron corruptly received the following payments in 2014 in his accounts, totalling $US1,899,931.68:
- May: $US99,971.02
- July: $US199,980.26
- August: $US299,980.40
- November: $US300,000
- November: $US300,000
- December: $US350,000
- December: $US350,000
A co-accused received a total of $US651,861.16, which included $21,881.60 from a payment to Waldron.
But David Morters, SC, for the Crown, said the interests of the bank were “the least of [Waldron’s] considerations”. He said Waldron had budgetary responsibility of $600 million and more than 200 staff, according to evidence before the court.
“Your honour would not accept that the offender had any real regard for the commercial interests of the Commonwealth Bank,” he said.
Morters submitted that Waldron’s “overwhelming motivation” was to enter into procurement contracts that would assist ServiceMesh, “in the full knowledge” this would benefit the US company and result in bribes “calculated on a sliding scale”.
The former CBA manager displayed an “active determination” to avoid processes the bank had in place to assess contractual arrangements, Morters said.
Waldron was “intimately involved in the discussions and the agreements that were reached”, Morters said, and his state of mind involved a focus on the benefits to accrue to him.
“That very clearly puts this at the highest level of offending,” Morters said.
“Your honour would conclude a state of mind which was focused on his own interests and which, because of his position and the benefits to accrue, places it at the higher end of criminality.”
Judge Mahony will deliver his sentence on September 27.
The Commonwealth Bank was approached for comment.
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