The managing director of McDonald's Restaurants (Hong Kong) Ltd., a unit of the world's biggest restaurant company, has been charged with allegedly accepting bribes from a corn supplier.

Lau Si-sing, 47, allegedly accepted commissions from May 2005 to April this year for "recommending and approving the food company to become the corn supplier of McDonald's," according to a statement from the city's Independent Commission Against Corruption. It didn't identify the food company. Lau received a 10 percent commission from the sales, it said.

Lau asked the director of the food company to "falsely represent to any law enforcement agents that the illegal rebates given by the director to Lau were for the purpose of their joint venture in properties in China," according to the statement.

McDonald's Hong Kong spokeswoman, Kylie Ng, couldn't immediately be reached for comment today. The fast-food chain, started its business in Hong Kong in 1975, has over 200 outlets in the city and employs more than 10,000 staff, according to its Web site.

Lau entered no plea in Hong Kong's Eastern Court yesterday to two counts of conspiring to accept advantages and one count of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, the South China Morning Post said today. The case was adjourned to Jan. 8, the English-language daily said, naming the corn supplier as Siam Reap Food Co.

The commission said that on Aug. 7 it had arrested 27 people, including a regional manager of a hot pot restaurant company, for alleged bribery over food supplies, in an operation code-named "Swift Horse."

McDonald's generated about 70 percent of sales from the U.S. and Europe last year, according to Bloomberg data. Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, its third-biggest region by revenue, contributed $3.05 billion of sales last year, or 14 percent of the group's total.