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PwC Auditors Arrested In Satyam Fraud Inquiry
theodp writes "Indian police arrested two employees from the affiliate of PricewaterhouseCoopers who audited Satyam Computer Services, the IT outsourcing giant at the center of the nation's largest fraud inquiry. The move comes after Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju said he had fabricated $1 billion of assets and confessed to making up more than 10,000 employees to siphon money from the software company. State Farm Insurance has severed its ties with Satyam, citing uncertainty about the company's future as 'the only factor responsible for the termination of the contract,' which will reportedly affect at least 400 on-site Satyam employees. Other customers, including GE, are standing by Satyam, one of the top recipients of H-1B and L visas (so much for those $500 Fraud Prevention and Detection fees!)."
'Obstruction of justice'? Enron, anyone?
(I don't think it will come to that though, in part for good reason - but it's a tantalizing thought)
Best wishes to you, Indian friend. May our two economies prosper and your standard of living dramatically increase.
A lot of corporate types are clinically insane.
The film "The Corporation" goes into this. I've actually worked on the investigation of a CEO that went to prison-and it was incredible how much in lied to himself and those around him.
My favorite story was when he was walking out the door. This guy was facing prison time. He had lost a bunch of investors money. He had endangered the jobs of a lot of people that trusted him. Now, this might be considered a time for some introspection. Instead, on his way out the door, he's attempting to steal office furniture!!
These folks are virtually a privatized branch of government. The US elites depend on companies like PWC to understand what is going on in big organizations. If PWC is compromised, that means the US elites are effectively flying blind.
Now, personally I think use of H-1b workers for critical financial infrastructure is stupid. It is impossible for an American to do a good background check on someone in/from India.
Nobody really knows how they will react when they have a chance to steal millions of dollars. Putting a young guy far from home into the position where he can do that-and the costs are born by citizens of a country he may not identify much with isn't doing that country or the young guy any favor.
I don't know how well it translates to english but... We have a saying "The guy who asks isn't stupid. The guy who pays is.". The reason for unqualified foreign labor isn't that people claim to be qualified/have qualified workers. Of course they do. It is because of we accept that with no evidence.
When I was still a project leader in one very large software and hardware company that we have all heard about, we rented 10 highly qualified Debian experts from India. And we paid quite well for them. It very quickly became evident that what we got was 10 indians who had gone through a three weeks long Debian course. The company had already sent the experts somewhere else so we were sent those guys...
Though I tried to tell my superior that the project was doomed to fail with those, the company refused to send them back and either abandon the project or demand more competent people. (I am to this day uncertain of why this was so)
I don't work there anymore and don't know if any other companies do such idiocies. But if they do, we have only ourselves to blame
There are differences in the real costs of some things. The problem is exchange rate differences. That is, work 40 hours in place A and you can live for a week there or then take that cash and live for a month in area B. Do that same 40 hours of work in area B and you can't even live for a day in area A.
The problem comes in because it's much easier to move a job overseas where labor is cheap than it is to move oneself overseas to where jobs exist.
Were the exchange rates equalized out, beef in Japan would still be more expensive due to shipping costs and houses in the middle of nowhere would still be cheaper, but there would be nowhere near the differences we see now between labor and living costs in (for example) New York and Mumbai.
In turn, that would lead to greater efficiencies overall. A pair of shoes takes X hours of human labor no matter where that labor happens. Currently it happens far away from the market they're sold in and then they get shipped halfway around the world. Were things equalized, they would still require X hours of labor but would only be shipped 1000 miles over land (much less resource intensive).
Economy is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around.
And that the auditors were a local subsidiary of PwC, well outside of US jurisdiction.
AFAIK, a US firm is responsible for ethical conduct irrespective of the country it operates in. For example, if your US firm's subsidiary bribes an Indian official , US courts have jurisdiction over the parent company in the matter
If something goes south we can take them to court, but short of that I can drive over to their office and find out for myself what's going on. Not so easy to do if your vendor is in Bangladore, now is it?
Outsourcing is a skill. You cant outsource work to the first tom dick or harry that quotes the lowest. You need to do your homework.Its challenging, and those from your side of the pond who have lived upto the challenge have saved millions of dollars in labor costs.
I have zero sympathy...and the meter readings to prove it
I have zero sympathy too. I and countless others lost our investments overnight as Satyam plummedted 80% within hours.
We can fix our regulatory environment and I frankly don't give a crap what happens in yours.
Unfortunately, the days , when people/comapnies/nations could island themselves economically and didnt give a crap what happened elsewhere, are over.You cannot stay unaffected, and sooner or later, you will be splashing in the very same crap.
Maybe stick to managing your own problems, that might be a good start.
Actually thats exactly what I was doing. I work for a shared project team half of which works in US and half is in Bangalore. Your very own US guy coded a deadlock in a "single writer multiple reader", and yours truly, the cheap coder fixes it.
I met my wife when I was living in Australia. We decided that I'd move to the US, and begun going through the proper channels, filing for a fiancee visa (essentially a three month visa - if you marry within the 3 months, you "adjust status" to conditional residency, which then has the conditions removed after two years, if not, you leave).
The process took 10 months from filing of paperwork (she had to file the paperwork while she was in the US, and while I was -not-, so that there could be no appearance of coercion. $455. Criminal records check: $130. Medical checkup in Australia: $260. Cost of getting documentation sent from the US to Australia: $50. Appointment Fee for interview in Sydney consulate: $160. Flight to Sydney, and accommodation: $350.
Arrival in US. Application for travel document (so I can travel outside of US until residency is granted): $340. After marriage, Application to Adjust Status to Conditional Residency: $930. Biometrics Fee: $80. Application to continue Employment Authorization from Adjustment of Status through to Conditional Residency (your fine for the backlog in USCIS): $340. Application to Remove Conditions on Residency: $465. Biometrics Fee: $80 (although you've had biometrics taken 2 years prior, and these are the same, they take them again, a 5 min process).
We worked out that it would be a CHEAPER, AND FASTER, process, if I had come here as a tourist, breach my visa and marry my wife, apply for permission to stay anyway. What fun.
We worked out that it would be a CHEAPER, AND FASTER, process, if I had come here as a tourist, breach my visa and marry my wife, apply for permission to stay anyway. What fun.
Know what you mean - my ex-wife is an Aussie (Melbourne area), came here on the usual tourist visa waiver for short visits, and stayed most of that time with me. About a week before she was supposed to go home, we decided to marry, so down to the courthouse we went. It was a long while before we got her residency, but that had more to do with being dirt-poor students who moved through a few states before settling down than it was anything else. Comparing notes with those who did it "legally," we had a fairly streamlined process all in all.
For what it's worth, wish you better long-term luck than I had. :)
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
> a culture where bribery can be a way of life
I hate to break it to you, but there are places where that's true in the U.S., too. There are places where it's difficult to impossible to get a water meter put in or a building plan approved without bribery. Doing it legally makes you the exception rather than the rule, it takes months or years longer to get it done, and you've got a good chance at being rejected on spurious grounds.