B1 visa misuse: Infy denies US staff's charges

Infosys on Wednesday dismissed allegations by Jay Palmer, one of its American employees, testifying before a US senate sub-committee on alleged misuse of B1 visas by the Indian IT major.

In February, Palmer had filed a complaint in a court in Lowndes Country, Albama, alleging that Infosys had misuses B1 business visa programme to bring Indian employees to the US to work at clients' sites.

However, since Infosys was not present in Albama, the company transferred the case to the Federal Court.

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In response to a query by Business Standard, Infosys said Palmer's commentary to the Senate was full of exaggerations and falsehoods.

Palmer is obviously intent on spreading his falsehoods about Infosys and our business practices as broadly as possible in order to advance his objective of getting a big a payout from the company," Paul N Gottsegen, chief marketing officer, Infosys said in an email statement.

Senator Grassley, who is a member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on "The Economic Imperative for Enacting Immigration Reform" had submitted Palmer's testimony on Wednesday during a hearing.

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In his testimony, Palmer among other things, had alleged that Infosys was bringing unskilled people from India on B-1 business visa to work at clients sites, and how he was forced to cooperate with the company for this 'unlawful' work.

He had even named a few American clients, including Wal-Mart, Johnson Control, Goldman Sachs and American Express, where Infosys allegedly had deployed B1 business visa holders.

Palmer had also questioned Infosys' whistleblower policy, as the company had not appointed an 'Independent SOX (Sarbanes- Oxley law) whistleblower counsel to review the allegations' made by him.

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Infosys said the company did not have any strategy to use the B-1 visa programme to circumvent the H-1B visa programme, and it did not send unskilled employees to the US on B-1 visas.

"Infosys is a world class company providing technology-based business solutions for our clients throughout the world.

"We take very seriously our obligations under the law and specifically our responsibilities to comply with the immigration laws and visa requirements in all jurisdictions where we have clients whose needs we serve daily," Gottsegen said.