BENTONVILLE — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it is adding the former chairman of accounting firm KPMG International Chairman to its board, effective immediately.
Tim Flynn, 55, will become the board’s 17th member and is also joining the audit committee.
The move comes as Wal-Mart attempts to regain shareholder trust after a bribery scandal in Mexico. In late April, The New York Times reported that Wal-Mart’s Mexican unit purportedly paid millions of dollars in bribes to speed building permits and gain other favors, and that executives didn’t notify authorities even after Wal-Mart found evidence of the scheme during a probe dating to 2005.
The bribery allegations have led to federal investigations in the U.S. and Mexico, as well as a global anticorruption compliance review by Wal-Mart. They also have spawned about a dozen shareholder lawsuits seeking changes in Wal-Mart’s corporate governance and damages on behalf of the Bentonville-based company from current and former executives and directors.