A senior manager at Mexico’s state oil company has resigned after reports that he accepted a free trip from a supplier who recently won a multi-million dollar contract from the firm.

Reuters reported that Manuel Reynauld, Pemex’s deputy director of business processes and technology infrastructure, resigned after one of Mexico’s national newspapers printed a story alleging that he accepted a four-day trip to see the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix from German software company SAP.

It coincided with the award to SAP of a US$30 million contract to provide software to the state-oil company. “With regard to ethics and the fight against corruption, the policy of Pemex will be zero tolerance,” company chief executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said in a statement, according to the report.

The report also said that Pemex has instigated an internal investigation and is asking SAP for an explanation for the trip. Mr Heroles told the news agency that he was anxious to crack down on any corruption within the company and to improve its image.

SAP has denied any wrongdoing. The company said in a statement that it takes its clients to Formula One events. It also noted that its own policies prohibited inviting clients who are not permitted to accept hospitality.

“Based on the information currently available, SAP believes its policies and internal processes were followed in the correct manner and there was no attempt to inappropriately influence any business decisions,” SAP said.

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Employees in the US Department of Defense have received tens of millions of dollars in paid travel expenses from companies and foreign countries around the world, a recent study has revealed.

Between 1998 and 2007, US military personnel and Pentagon civilian employees received more than 22,000 paid trips worth at least US$26 million, according to the study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity. This raises serious conflict of interest concerns, according to the study’s authors.

The benefactors included the US medical and manufacturing sectors, and the Chinese and Russian governments. The trips were often to popular vacations spots such as Paris, Rome and Honolulu. Also included were 1,500 trips worth more than US$2.6 million paid by governments in Australia, Singapore, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates, the report said.

But the leading sponsor was the US medical industry, which paid out US$10 million for around 8,700 trips made by military pharmacists, doctors, and others. Those who benefited were usually decision makers for the US government’s US$6 billion Pentagon prescription drug budget, the report added.

“The is riddled with conflicts of interest, and it is creating relationships that are worth an awful lot of money to these companies for relatively little spending,” Bill Buzenberg, the centre’s executive director, told Reuters.

In response, a Pentagon spokesperson said that the trips were vetted in compliance with the government’s policies and procedures designed to avoid conflicts of interest for employees who oversee federal projects.

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