The NBN Co's ordered Mr. Quigley to issue a letter of apology and read to reporters, in response to the articles suggesting him and NBN Co's chief financial officer, Jean-Pascal Beaufret also a former Alcatel-Lucent executive, were investigated by US authorities.
The NBN Co. letter of apology stemmed from a previous statement correcting claims that as president of fixed communications at Alcatel-Lucent, Mr. Quigley was not in any way responsible for operations in Costa Rica.
The country is one of three countries where Alcatel-Lucent admits employees bribed officials for contracts.
It has paid a $US137 million fine to US officials since that incident.
The NBN Chief said: ''I have today been advised by Alcatel-Lucent that, contrary to previous advice, Costa Rica was among the many countries and territories in North, Central and South America that were part of my wide-ranging portfolio of responsibilities in the period March 2001 to January 2003.''
He also added: ''This, however, does not change the fact that I was not involved in any of these matters as is evident by the fact that in the course of their thorough investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the USDepartment of Justice did not seek to interview me nor did they make an adverse finding in relation to me.''
Pressed by reporters to make more comments, he said he would not make any more comments because of the pending legal action in the US, which apparently does not involve him.
Also yesterday, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull expressed apprehensions the pending deal between Telstra and NBN Co could make it too expensive to change to a different broadband policy in the future.
Mr. Turnbull said: ''If NBN Co, or a future government, were to redesign the NBN so as to build a fiber-to-the-node network, at least in part, the NBN Co would be required to negotiate with Telstra to use a part of the copper customer access network it has already paid Telstra to decommission.''
NBN Co Limited is a government-owned corporation established by the Australian government to design, build and operate the National BroadbandNetwork.
