DOJ joins HP bribery probe

The Department of Justice has requested Hewlett-Packard turn over company documents connected to an ongoing investigation by the German government into charges of bribery, according to a report published Friday.

The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources that say the Justice Department has asked HP for company records, but has not subpoenaed them yet. A Department of Justice spokeswoman declined to comment on the report. An HP spokeswoman said, "HP is and has been fully cooperating with all authorities on this matter."

Reports surfaced in April that German prosecutors were investigating whether the computing giant paid $10.9 million in an attempt to win a contract to provide a sophisticated computer system to the Russian prosecutor general's office. Russian officials reportedly raided HP's offices in Russia at the request of German investigators. Specifically, they were looking for evidence that HP used a series of shell companies in a variety of countries--Britain, Austria, Switzerland, the British Virgin Islands, Belize, New Zealand, Latvia, Lithuania, and the U.S.--to create a fund that paid the Russian prosecutor's office.

For more on this story, read Report: DOJ joins HP bribery investigation on CNET.