CHINA - Auditor BPA Worldwide has terminated its contract with Business Travel magazine in China after it exaggerated its circulation figure by almost 200,000 copies.
The BPA Worldwide executive committee voted to terminate the BPA membership of Business Travel, published by Business Travel Publishing House Co Ltd, for making false statements to its staff and failing to allow BPA Worldwide to complete an audit for the 12 month period ending December 2009.
While conducting an onsite print run check of the April 2010 issue, BPA audit staff were presented with taped boxes allegedly filled with over 210,000 printed copies of Business Travel, which upon further inspection were empty.
The publisher then refused BPA access to complete an audit for the 12 months ending December 2009, including access to printer records to verify the printed number of copies for all 2009 issues.
BPA Worldwide later confirmed just 13,360 issues of the magazine – around one-sixteenth of the alleged production number - were actually printed. Business Travel’s average print claim for the 12 month period ending December 31, 2009, was 210,347.
