MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – HP Inc. is accused of racketeering in a lawsuit that says it threatened and extorted distributors of their computers and printer products.
Etertin and Iveo Latinamerican Trading filed their lawsuit Feb. 1 in Miami federal court against HP and several individuals they claim demanded bribes.
Etertin has been a distributor of HP products in Argentina since 1995 but HP Argentina executives have been demanding direct payments from it since 2011. They also told Etertin’s owner, Diego Verdejo, to give them a portion of his company.
“Former HP Argentina executive Gonzalo Giazitzian extracted payments from Verdejo and other individuals and companies by threatening to cut off the companies’ access to HP products if the payments were not made,” the suit says.
“At least two other companies in Argentina, Intermaco, S.R.L. and Elite, S.A., were similarly forced to pay money to Giazitzian and other HP Argentina executives.”
Iveo Latinamerican was forced to make several wire transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars to an account owned by Giazitzian for distribution to other HP executives, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit notes a 2014 settlement between the U.S. government and Hewlett-Packard worth $108 million that resolved allegations of similar bribes in Mexico, Russia and Poland.