US probing visa sponsorships—Infosys

United States, 27th January: India’s leading Software services provider Infosys Ltd has warned its employees that the US was conducting investigations over the US business visa sponsorships.

This was revealed by the IT giant Wednesday during a recent meeting in Texas with US Attorney’s office. The probe by the US is being targeted towards some of the employees of Infosys with regard to alleged misuse of US visa. A subpoena was issued to Infosys from a grand jury in May 2011.

As per the subpoena, Infosys must provide certain records and documents to the jury with regard to sponsorships by the company for US B1 business visas, the filing states.

Infosys’ alleged misuse of US B1 business visas--US B1 business visas are meant to be issued for short-term basis including attending business conventions and consulting. The subpoena is the result of allegations lodged by a former employee alleging that the company was guilty of abusing US B1 visas.

The filing by the company to the US Securities & Exchange Commission stated that the IT giant Infosys is complying and is expected to have discussions regarding this matter with the US Attorney official.

An official spokeswoman of Infosys has revealed that the company is co-operating with the concerned authorities and has further maintained that there has been no misuse of US visas at any point of time.

Meanwhile, the filing has stated that the outcome or the result of the probe or discussions with the US cannot be predicted. The filing further added that company is subject to legal claims and proceedings arising during the ordinary course of business.

The subpoena was issued to Infosys in May last year by a US district court in Texas seeking certain details about the US B1 business visas issued by the company.

Jack Palmer, a former employee of the company, had filed a lawsuit in Alabama court saying the company was abusing the process of US B1 business visa for sending foreigners possessing lower skill-sets to come and work in the US on full-time job positions.

Infosys had stated that the if the US government or any other government does take any action leading to limitations on US visas for the company or introduces sanctions, or penalties, it will affect the performance of the company adversely.