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Sun Microsystems May Have Violated Bribery Law
Afforess writes "In a new file submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sun Microsystems admitted that 'we have identified potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the resolution of which could possibly have a material effect on our business.' The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it 'unlawful to make a payment to a foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.' Yet, Sun would not release further details, only that it 'took remedial action.' Oracle, the new owner of Sun Microsystems, also said that they had prior knowledge of the infraction, yet also refused to release any details."
It's a law that is almost never followed by companies that do business overseas. And the reason they cite for doing it? Other companies are not bound by such laws and are free to engage in such practices which gives the other companies a "competitive advantage." It is practically chinese national culture that bribery occurs and is quite expected.
But the other reason I love this law is that charges associated with it often disappear with "healthy contributions" to party and individual campaign funds.
I agree with you completely, but if there's some mechanism to produce such change I don't see it. Just to take an example with which I'm familiar, say you're a large defense contractor and you want to sell something to Saudi Arabia. That's absolutely going to require a little something to their defense minister to even get your proposal in the door. You don't want to pay to play? Fine - Raytheon/BAE Systems/Lockheed/Kollsman/Northrop/etc etc etc are all perfectly willing to take your place. Enforcement of the rules is spotty at best. For every company that gets caught, a dozen more just did business, and the US doesn't necessarily even want to catch you. Oh, on paper they do, but in reality you're talking billions of dollars of taxable income, and if it doesn't go to a US contractor, China/Russia/India/Japan/etc etc etc are more than willing to fill the void. Unless you suddenly create a worldwide attack of conscience and morals, I'm not even certain how change can begin to happen.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
...and settling in US, I have seen a lot of bribery in Action, here and back home.
Place where I work, large bank here in US, a contractor wins all the contracts for software development. Not because he is competitive, but because he sponsors the directors horse racing team. On paper its clean, XYZ has a horse racing team, PQR sponsors the team. In the bank, Mr XYZ awards all contracts to Mr PQR.
Back home, PQR would have just handed over keys to a new car to XYZ.
That is the only difference.
West has learned how to legalize bribe.
Transparency International: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_International and http://www.transparency.org/
It's a tough road to take, but if everybody tolerates corruption, it ain't gonna go away, and it certainly hurts more than it helps.
Bribery stories are my favorite from folks doing business overseas. In order to avoid direct bribery, some companies hire local "consultants," who get paid an obscene fee to help land the contract. What they do with their money doesn't concern the company paying the fee; the bribe is indirect.
My all time favorite was from a government auditor who visited Korea to check up on three local suppliers to the US military. The suppliers made dinner arrangements, and told the auditor where to meet them. When he arrived at the restaurant, there were the three suppliers, with four prostitutes seated at the table, with one empty seat.
What's so funny? The auditor had brought his wife along to see Korea, and came with him to the restaurant. One prostitute got her pay early, and the mood at the table afterwards was uncomfortable.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
There's no jail time and the fines are light
Oh really? Check out the fine they slapped on Siemens last year. 1.6 billion USD... See http://www.secactions.com/?p=655