China’s tech giant Tencent Holdings kicked out nearly 100 employees in 2022 for breaching the law and company regulations. The firm revealed the same on Monday, claiming suspected bribery and embezzlement.

Tencent took to its social media network WeChat to share that they found more than 70 cases and spanned sectors as broad as live streaming, advertising, and video games. The Shenzhen-based firm had charged more than 10 individuals to law authorities.

The announcement of the termination came after Pony Ma, the founder of Tencent, stated in a town hall last month that major “corruption” concerns had been detected within the firm. He also said that incompetence was diminishing the firm’s vitality.

For instance, one of the most severe cases publicly disclosed on Monday was how a person had taken money from some other firm and had subsequently been granted a three-year prison term. Not just this, prison sentences were also issued in six additional cases that were reported.

“There is an increase in the number of cases and people involved this year as compared with 2021 Tencent’s anti-cheating investigation department has taken stronger measures against these internal issues such as corruption and cheating,” the firm said. 

In 2022, we saw Tencent releasing a yearly report detailing the number and specifics of bribery incidents discovered within the firm. The step encouraged authenticity and transparency at Tencent. 

Tencent made public over 70 staff terminations, which were the result of more than 50 corruption allegations in January of last year. Besides this, in November, Tencent Holdings reportedly sacked employees in video streaming, gaming and cloud businesses. 

This step affected three out of six of Tencent's business divisions - platform and content (PCG), which comprised its video and news platforms, its gaming-focused interactive entertainment department (IEG) and its cloud and smart industries group (CSIG).