A Shanghai court early Monday decided that four Rio Tinto (RTP) employees were guilty of accepting bribes and stealing state secrets.

According to reports, Australian national Stern Hu received 10 years in prison, Wang Yong received 14 years, Ge Minqiang was sentenced to eight years, and Liu Caikui was sentenced to seven years. There were also some fines for Hu associated with the charges. All four of the accused plead guilty to bribery, but argued the size of the bribes offered.

So, just in time for the Super Bowl, we have an interesting controversy surrounding a couple heavyweights of the snack world. Turns out that buyers from Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) and Frito-Lay at Pepsico, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) are pleading guilty to accepting bribes. Buyers from both companies were accepting "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in bribes that were part of a scheme that helped push food prices higher nationwide.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, James Wahl Jr. (a former Frito-Lay purchaser from Dallas) has agreed to plead guilty to accepting roughly $160,000 (that's a lot of corn chips). This news comes after Robert Watson (senior purchasing manager at KFT) plead guilty to accepting $158,000 from a California-based tomato processor. According to the charges, the men helped a sales broker at SK Foods (which processes tomatoes in Lemoore, California) charge their respective companies higher prices.

File this under Julie Roehm: avenger. The PR food fight between Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and its former marketing communications chief just got more interesting. I don't know why she picked late Friday afternoon on a get-away-weekend to launch her latest missive but according to the Wall Street Journal, Julie Roehm is alleging that WMT executives violated its ethics policy by accepting discounts on yachts, diamonds and personal gifts from vendors.

To put this into perspective, here's a recap of the rounds so far:

1. Wal-Mart fires Roehm alleging she accepted gifts from an advertising agency that was later chosen to handle WMT's ad account (12/06).
2. Roehm countersues WMT for breach of contract (12/06).
3. In a countersuit, WMT releases salacious details about an alleged affair Roehm had with a subordinate -- Sean Womack -- accusing her of misusing WMT travel funds on business trips with him. The suit cites one e-mail purportedly sent to Womack by Roehm as saying: "I think about us together all of the time. Little moments like watching your face when you kiss me." (3/07).

And today's round goes to Roehm, who alleges that WMT CEO H. Lee Scott, received "preferential prices" on yachts and "a large pink diamond for his wife" through his relationship with Irwin Jacobs. One of Jacobs's companies, Jacobs Trading, has the exclusive right to buy unsold WMT merchandise.