Alcatel Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen has decided to cut back the number of outside consultants the company will use to find customer deals, a practice that has gotten some companies in hot water after the middlemen were found to have given bribes in foreign countries. Indeed, a former Alcatel executive, Christian Sapsizian, pleaded guilty this past September to conspiring with a Costa Rican consultant to send $2.5 million in bribes to get deals with a government-controlled cellular service provider. BusinessWeek Article [1]