Mark Patterson, North Asia chief executive officer of GroupM, told Media: "We take integrity in all its guises very seriously. It is core to the values of all companies in GroupM. We are proud of our strong reputation in this area in China.
"We take professional advice on managing this from a number of specialists and employ a range of systems, processes and training programmes to protect our people and clients."
While he declined to give details, he noted that the programme was conducted with transparency, with the China team's knowledge and not in a covert manner. He added: "A crucial part of our approach is a zero tolerance policy. When we do discover evidence of behaviour and activity that contravenes our codes of conduct (signed by every single employee), we take immediate and appropriate action."
See Opinion 2, page 19