Fired Worker Alleges Levi’s Paid Bribes

A fired Levi Strauss & Co. security official has accused company attorneys of bribing Indonesian authorities to get them to raid the makers of counterfeit Levi clothes.

William E. Hansen says in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed this month that he was assistant director of corporate security when he and his then-superior, Tom Nagle, met in 1995 with Levi’s Indonesian counsel, D.D. Dermawan.

The suit contends that Nagle complained to Dermawan that the latter’s payment of $25,000 to the country’s customs officials might violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars bribery of officials overseas by U.S. companies. The following year, Hansen alleges, he saw another outside lawyer for Levi’s take $17,500 in cash in a paper bag to the Indonesian police “for conducting the raid.”

In 1997, Levi Strauss said seven out of every 10 pairs of Levi’s in Indonesia were counterfeit.

Hansen told various Levi’s officials about the apparent bribery, the suit alleges.

The San Francisco-based company declined to answer questions about the case. But as for any violations of the foreign bribery law, Levi’s spokeswoman Linda Butler said, “As far as we know, we’re not under any investigation.”

Hansen was fired in September 1998, ostensibly as part of a broader corporate retrenchment. He contends in his San Francisco County Superior Court suit that he was terminated illegally as part of a cover-up.