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."

Comments

Since most people don't RTFA

[rackserverdeals]

For those of you that won't RTFA, this may not be a big deal and is fairly common.

For example, in 2007, networking provider Alcatel-Lucent agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle charges that Lucent Technologies, before it was bought by Alcatel SA in 2006, illegally paid for hundreds of trips for Chinese officials to win contracts. In a separate case, IBM Corp. agreed in 2000 to pay $300,000 to settle allegations that its Argentina subsidiary was involved in bribing officials of a government-owned bank to win a contract to upgrade the bank's computer systems.

Re:Since most people don't RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody's doing it. Everybody knows everybody's doing it. There's no jail time and the fines are light, so corporations are happy to break the law and pay the money. The government doesn't actually care about foreign corruption. It's basically a tax on doing business abroad.

Re:Since most people don't RTFA

[JustOK]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with Slashdot's front page? I want my low-bandwidth, dialup-friendly version back but despite changing my preference multiple times, I'm getting some frakked-up yellow-and-white monstrosity.

you have to bribe someone to get what you want

Re:Since most people don't RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

They DO care about foreign corruption. Thats money that could have been paid to US government officials.

In many countries, no bribery = no business

[LatencyKills]

And it's naive to think otherwise. You want to do serious governmental business in Saudi Arabia/Egypt/Jordan? Some shiek/prince/royal family member is going to get some quid pro quo. And quite frankly it's more or less true in America as well. You think those Congressional reelection campaign coffers are going to fill themselves?

Re:In many countries, no bribery = no business

[toppavak]

And that attitude, especially among instructors (I've spoken to several business school faculty espousing this view before), prevents this from ever changing. At some point one has to make a decision about what ideals are worth holding on to. Having spent a lot of time in a country where corruption at every level is rampant (India) and seeing many successful businesses run cleanly, I don't believe your equation is entirely accurate. It is a decision on our part as individuals as to whether we want to actively propagate corruption in developing countries or not. To preach ethical practices in business, engineering and science and yet consider those practices to be naive is nothing short of ludicrous.

With the amount of harm it does to developing economies and the people that live there, doing business this way should be treated as a crime against humanity. It retards the progression of democracy and social justice abroad and creates future demand for corruption. Just because this was the way an older generation operated doesn't mean the new generations of leaders coming out of colleges now have to continue their mistakes. It all starts with the realization that one person can actually change the world- for good or for bad. The question you have to ask yourself is simple: which way do you want to change it?

Re:In many countries, no bribery = no business

[toppavak]

Universal nut shellers in Uganda. I worked with an NGO to create a self-sustaining social enterprise that manufactures and sells nut shellers (at profit) to peanut growers in the country. We never gave a single bribe (we couldn't afford to even if we needed to!). Its hard, yes, but its not impossible.

par for the course

[Pompatus]

There are quite a few countries who's culture is substantially different from the United States in which bribery is considered standard business practice. If you dont bribe an official in one of those countries, you dont get anything done.

I love this law

[erroneus]

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.

Funny story about bribery

[cptnapalm]

In my home state there are laws against bribery and corruption of course. One of them pertains to gifts. Included in the banned gifts are food. The rule is that you cannot accept food (usually cookies) from anyone unless you eat it in front of them.

Now that last bit sounds odd, doesn't it. Obviously, the rules do allow you to accept a gift of food if you eat in front of them. So, in practice, this means that if you accept cookies for going the extra mile for somebody, you are CORRUPT and UNETHICAL!!! If, on the other hand, you are a politician and getting bought dinner by a lobbyist, you are a force for righteousness.

Apparently.

Frontline Covered this Recently

[CodeBuster]

For those of you who are interested and have not already seen it, the Foreign Corrupt Practices act and international bribery by large corporations and wealthy individuals was covered in the "Black Money" episode on Frontline. Obviously the Sun case, coming to light more recently and being much smaller than the frauds discussed in the documentary, is not mentioned, but the Sun case is just another smaller instance of a much larger problem.

There are other folks who think like you . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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.