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By Aruna Viswanatha WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores maybe facing sizeable fines related to allegations of widespreadbribery at its Mexican affiliate, after a second report from theNew York Times provided more details about the scope of thepotential misconduct. Experts said the latest report, published online late onMonday, is significant because it appears to show that thealleged bribes were a substantial part of its business methods,and more than routine payments to speed up approvals, which areallowed under U.S. law. The newspaper said the world's largest retailer opened some19 stores by using hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes toget what local laws otherwise prohibited. In April the newspaper reported that Wal-Mart had stifled aninternal probe into bribery at its Mexican affiliate Walmex, but gave the impression that many of the bribespaid may have been used to facilitate approval processes alreadyin motion. "I think the Times story, if it is true, changes theperception of the Wal-Mart matter from being about facilitatingpayments to something larger than that," said Danforth Newcomb,an expert on U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) whodefends such cases at the law firm Shearman & Sterling. The latest story describes, for example, $765,000 in bribesthat helped Wal-Mart build a refrigerated distribution center inan environmentally fragile area where electricity was scarce andsmaller developers were turned away. It also describes in detailhow Wal-Mart allegedly paid $52,000 to change a zoning map so itcould open a store near the ancient pyramids in Teotihuacan. It is difficult to put a ballpark figure on any settlement,especially because the U.S. investigation into Wal-Mart is inearly stages, but experts said it could rival other major FCPAcases. In the largest FCPA case to date, Siemens paid$800 million to resolve allegations of widespread bribery in2008. In other sizeable cases, KBR and its former parentHalliburton paid $579 million in 2009, and BAE Systems paid $400 million in 2010. Wal-Mart declined to provide additional comment on Tuesday.On Monday, Wal-Mart said that the allegations in the Timesreport have been part of the investigation of potential FCPAviolations the company began conducting more than a year ago. The company is cooperating with the U.S. Justice Departmentand the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the matter. Representatives of the SEC and DOJ declined to comment. POTENTIAL FINES The Justice Department usually calculates fines in foreignbribery cases by either levying a per-violation fine or apenalty tied to the profits a company earned through the allegedbribery. Related SEC settlements usually also involve disgorgingprofits earned due to the bribery. Including Walmex's profits at stores throughout Mexico couldprove a sizable fine. It is unclear how many of the roughly2,000 locations in Mexico could be included. In 2011, Walmexposted gross profit of nearly 83.7 billion pesos ($6.58billion). In 2004, the year in which it allegedly pushed for zoning toopen the store near the ancient pyramids, Walmex's gross profitwas 28.84 billion pesos ($2.27 billion). The 2011 resultsinclude Central America. When calculating potential fines, prosecutors take intoaccount how widespread the conduct was, and whether seniormanagement knew about it or were involved in any way. Wal-Marthas said it is investigating allegations related to itsoperations in Brazil, India, and China. "Wal-Mart de Mexico didn't stumble into a bit of bribery. Ifthe allegations are correct, it used systematic bribery as partof its business strategy as a way to grow," said Richard Cassin,an FCPA expert and author of a popular FCPA blog. The company's costs to conduct the entire investigation -which already stand at $100 million - could be larger than itseventual fines, lawyers said. Wal-Mart has also been proactive with other measures thatcould blunt some of the demands from authorities. When settlingFCPA cases, companies are usually required to make somemanagement changes and overhaul their compliance programs. In October the company said it reorganized its compliancedepartment and created a new global chief compliance officerposition as part of an overhaul of its anti-corruption efforts. It said then that it spent more than $30 million to updateits anti-corruption program, named a new chief complianceofficer for Wal-Mart International and a new vice president ofglobal investigations, which are both new positions for thecompany. It also previously created a new global FCPA complianceofficer position.