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Hewlett-Packard Pleads Guilty To Bribing Officials in Russia, Poland, and Mexico
Charliemopps writes Hewlett-Packard and three subsidiaries pleaded guilty Thursday to paying bribes to foreign officials in Russia, Mexico and Poland and agreed to pay $108 million in criminal and regulatory penalties. For over 10 years Hewlett-Packard kept 2 sets of books to track slush-funds they used to bribe government officials for favorable contracts.
From the article:
According to the Justice Department, HP Poland paid more than $600,000 in cash bribes and gifts, travel and entertainment to the the police agency's director of information and communications technology. HP Poland gave the government official bags filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash, provided the official with HP desktop and laptop computers, mobile devices and other products and took the official on a leisure trip to Las Vegas, which included a private tour flight over the Grand Canyon, the Justice Department said.
The foreign officials probably weren't reporting the income on their taxes, either.
This is different from lobbyists giving "campaign contributions" how?
The same thing happens everywhere, it's just a matter of the form it takes.
At this point, I assume all politicians and all corporations are corrupt.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We don't pay any of these at all and we do business in 160 countries.
Bribery (including 'campaign donations' in the USA) is a risky tactic. Immediately, you get easier access to do whatever it was you were trying to do. However, it leads to a list of no-win situations that are likely to follow depending on factors completely outside your control, a few examples.
1) The bribed official is replaced, then you must either bribe the current position-holder a convincing amount or face increased scrutiny. (In the USA balance of campaign contributions, you can get away with donating less to Republicans because they like to give the impression that they don't take bribes. Also, Democrats will happily condemn anyone who does donate to Republicans at all, even if 90% of the company's political donations are to Democrats.)
2) Someone else in the chain decides they want a cut. This increases the total bribe cost, and adds a political issue of figuring out how to balance the bribes to maximize results. There is no stable balance.
3) In the unlikely event that an honest official (probably a new appointment with no related work history) gets involved anywhere near the bribe-route, they will probably notice that the relevant paperwork and regulations were not followed correctly. These individuals will be hostile to attempts to add them to the bribe arrangement for a time, and will make you follow the rules for a while until either the temptation of money wins out or the other corrupt officials get sick of the do-gooder and 'deal with' the individual.
4) A competitor offers a better bribe. You then either have to pay more or be treated as badly as if you weren't bribing to begin with (but don't dare decrease your bribe, that will be taken as a personal attack).