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SAP Paid Bribes To Panamanian Officials
jfruh writes: A former SAP exec has pled guilty to bribing Panamanian officials in a successful attempt to sell SAP licenses to the Panamanian government. Vicente Eduardo Garcia, SAP's former vice president of global and strategic accounts for Latin America, says he wasn't the only SAP employee who knew about the scheme. From the Dept. of Justice press release, "According to Garcia’s admissions, the conspirators used sham contracts and false invoices to disguise the true nature of the bribes. Garcia further admitted that he believed paying such bribes was necessary to secure both the initial contract and additional Panamanian government contracts."
I thought this was the only way SAP gets sold. It's not like any rational person would pull it into their organization. But for a $90K payday, sure, it's only the taxpayers' money, right?
American naïveté is not realizing that bribes, or what ever they are called in a a particular culture, are the only way to get things done in many of the world's countries. I realize that America would like ot claim the high road, but it's just not tenable.
Paying bribes is one of the only ways SAP is likely to get their foot in the door. After that the money all flows the other way.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Corruption in South America? Say it ain't so!
I could hardly believe it myself!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
>> in South America? Say it ain't so!
I'll say it ain't so. Panama's in CENTRAL America.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+ma...
It is naïveté and arrogance on the part of the American government; thinking that they and their laws can influence or change the behavior of other cultures. It is also naïveté on your part for not realizing that.
Ham stringing your own companies by preventing them from participating in various different markets does nothing to change said market nor does it help you domestically. It is ignorance, arrogance, and naïveté.
I thought SAP already had pretty a pretty solid foothold in the Spanish-speaking world.
You always see "Transmitido en Español en SAP" at the beginning of soap operas and game shows and things.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
Fail thread. Bribery is typical, and accepted, from mexico to argentina so why does this thread even exist? I supposed to the uninitiated this all sounds pretty horrible but it is how things are done in those areas.
Fail thread.
NEXT!
I know I sound cynical, but enterprise software vendors can't make these multimillion dollar deals happen without greasing a few palms. These software packages are so awful and require millions more in consulting beyond the license price -- I can't see any technically oriented person supporting their purchase without some inducement. In this case, it was a direct bribe that the sales team thought they could get away with.
Most software companies slip these things under the table through channels that don't legally qualify as bribes. Ever wonder why horrible expensive software packages are sometimes called "golf course ware?" It's a dirty business and things like paying for some kid of an exec's school tuition, or rounds and rounds of strip club visits, or golf, or "educational product seminars" in Aruba is just cost of sales for these companies. It's kind of like lobbyists -- they can't legally hand a Congressperson a paper bag full of money, but they can sure make things happen for them behind the scenes that are the equivalent of the paper bag.
Part of me wishes I was a CTO so I could just line up the vendors and collect bribe after bribe...oops, sorry, "favor" after "favor." Then again, I've worked with some of this horrible software (SAP, Oracle, etc.) and the awful botton-of-the-barrel offshored or H-1B management consultants they send in to "implement" them. No wonder everyone outside of large businesses wants nothing to do with big monolithic packages!!
Everything that's south of the Nothern America is Southern America... at least for some :)
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
He wrote LATIN America.
Which is not a continent btw....
Anyway, if you replace Panama for Brazil you wouldn't be shocked(unfortunately).
SAP? Say it ain't so.
I knew German software was bad, but they really have to PAY people to use it?
In the international marketplace, all anti-bribery laws do is put European and American countries at a disadvantage. Do you think China or India are paying the slightest bit of attention to anti-bribery laws?
All such laws do is force companies to relocate to the Bahamas or somewhere like it for "greater operational flexibility" (i.e. legal bribery) in order to compete.
You're not going to get rid of corruption in Nigeria, Venezuela or Kazakhstan by passing some dimwitted do-gooder laws in Europe or the USA. It's ineffective and self-defeating.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Tell that to Venezuelan Rafael Esquivel, of recent FIFA ignomy.
Not quite. There's America, South America (everything south of America), and The Great White North (north of America), aka The American Province of Canada.
As this is how Americans companies do business overseas.
This was a huge strategic misstep by Trump.
Not that he mentioned it -- you could see many candidates look visibly nervous when he mentioned he had given donations to most of the candidates on the stage.
What he SHOULD have done was produced cancelled checks (or certified facsimiles) from his suit coat, held them out in his hand, and said "I've donated money to most of these guys at one point, and here are the cancelled checks to prove it" and then run through them rattling off amounts, dates and names.
That would have been AMAZING. It's one thing to have Bernie Sanders or the anti-money left complain about money in politics, it'd be completely different to have a guy who's actually written the checks produce them spontaneously in public in front of the douchebags who take the money.
And I grant Trump enough credit as a pragmatic businessman who knows there are times you gotta write a check (or stuff a brown paper bag) if you want to get past some of these guys and get something done. Yes, it's awful, but not doing it is probably a significant business liability (especially if you operate in NYC).
Now, the bummer postscript is I think somebody fact-checked Trump's claim and he'd only actually given money to a couple of them and it was kind of squishy how it was given -- a lot of these guys route their bribes through their favorite charities or something to skirt laws, hide bribes or obfuscate the process somehow.
But still, seeing the guy that wrote the checks on stage bitching about how everybody has their hand out in front of the egg-suckers who have their hands out would have been truly wonderful.
Well, you've distilled one key problem with modern capitalism quite well. You can't "do business" without "greasing the skids". Somehow sounds a bit distinct from any kind of "government of, by and for the people". Unless you meant the rich people.
Now they don't need to route the money through anything other than their own superpacs. It is quite legal thanks to 5 out of 9 SC justices.
I hope this continues to be a point of discussion in this election, rather than what names Trump called certain women.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Who said they want to get rid of corruption, in general? SAP is a German company and in Germany it's perfectly legal to bribe a foreign official. It makes the exports more "competitive" and it's good for the German economy. Anti-bribery laws is Germany are only concerned about bribing German officials, thus putting the country at an advantage, not a disadvantage. See what state Greece is in? Maybe you want to read on the bribing of Greek officials by Siemens. (Disclaimer: I'm Greek living in Germany)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I spent four years in Central America, in Costa Rica and Panama. I only wonder why this is news.
If you take a look at the Panama City skyline, it's pretty impressive. The population for the metropolitan area is only about 1.5 million though, so why all the skyscrapers? Who lives there?
No one. The government started investing in infrastructure after the Canal changed hands and they actually started getting money from it, and this fostered a booming construction trade. The construction companies thought that this government money was a grand idea, and the best way to keep it flowing is obviously to kick some of it back to the government officials. The government has spend the last decade trying to hide the debt that has been piling up as a result of this, and the only thing that I can say is that at least some of the money went into infrastructure.
Corruption is the expected norm in the entirety of Central America. It's how things are done there. I've bribed police there myself, and one of my friends was elected Representante de Panama while I was there: I can confirm that this operates the same way on all levels. The only reason I can think of why this would show up in the news at all is that someone didn't get paid enough. Where is the story here?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If you're going to Panama for drugs, you may as well just go to Columbia. But either way, Panama uses the US Dollar (although they do mint their own dollar coins). McAfee has a good writeup on drug running too.
I hope this continues to be a point of discussion in this election, rather than what names Trump called certain women.
This is where Trump's personality is doing him in.
If he was just a little less of an asshole, his intimate knowledge of money in politics from a *buyer's* perspective and ability to name names, amounts and "policy outcomes" might be a huge advantage.
So the solution is to double down on corruption? Your cynicism accomplishes nothing.
The only reason you have some level of accountability for these crimes, yes they are crimes, is to actively fight those attempting to perpetrate them. They may be largely ineffective for some scenarios, but it makes the world vastly better as a whole if it wasn't. Fifa scandle being the latest most notable example would never happen if we sat on our hands letting people have free reign. Want someone killed? Slip some cash into the right hands. Dig up dirt? Sure, just greese the right wheels. Dump 1000tons of waste into that lake? Well, how much is it worth to you? This is NOT the world I want to live in and shame on your for encouraging it.
http://www.transparency.org/cp...
Frankly, this is one of the main reasons I've been siding against economic open borders and free flow of liquidity. There are too many countries with big holes in their enforcement of financial crimes (if said crimes are even on the books).
Bye!
It's funny, because Trump figured out that what pleases primary voters is not the same thing that pleases party operatives and media personalities (notice I did not say journalists, which we don't have much of anymore). He knows that being a gigantic, egotistical snarky ahole is exactly what so many people want to hear. A lot of Americans would rather hear someone hurl insults as opposed to talking about policy issues. So he may have had to sign a truce with Fox News, but he is going to keep doing the same circus stunts to stay in the headlines. It will sell well in Merica.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Double down? No. Accept it as reality as it is? Yes, I'm for that.
Corruption is a universal in human societies, including ours in the USA. The issue Solutions to change that have the potential to be *far* worse than the original problem. Corruption can be discouraged effectively only by removing everyone's privacy and allowing the government immediate electronic access to all financial transactions and by banning all non-electronic financial transactions. No cash. No gold.
Do you want that? Really? Because then, you've more or less opened the door to a permanent security/police state whose control over the economy would inevitably evolve to absolute control over your financial life (Remember, corruption is inevitable).
Moreover, this would be unenforceable. Barter still works and would be even harder to control.
So sure, let's have some more "feel good" accountability for the polluter who used a bribe rather than simply killing anyone locally who tried to stop them. I'm sure that would be "better."
You're assuming there's a solution to the problem of civilization slowly committing suicide. I wish you were right.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
yes, and we all look the same
You know, if being a greedy, corrupt, rich douchebag who bought politicians in the past is ever considered a plus in running for office ... your society is deeply fucked.
He can't be part of the solution when he's part of the problem. Precisely because he doesn't see it as a problem, and probably defends the practice.
Do you want to live in a world in which a billionaire president buys whatever policy outcomes he wants by paying off the rest of the politicians? Or blackmailed them by saying he'll tell how he bribed them?
That society will become a shithole pretty quick.
Precisely because it would end up with whatever policy outcomes assholes like Donald Trump want, or whatever large corporations are willing to pay for.
Seriously, nothing good could come from that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Like another commenter pointed out, anyone willingly purchasing SAP on technical merits and suitability probably has a screw loose. On top of that, having lived in Panama for a short while, *nothing* gets done without bribes. Someone always wants a little something extra to sweeten the deal. Made me sick.
Why the downmod?
IT managers and sometimes administrators are routinely taken out to expensive lunches, given free product "demos", etc to get them to go with a vendor or a contract company. That's what happens in the open. They're probably also getting bribed under the table. This is illegal but happens nearly every day. There is absolutely 0 oversight.
CAPTCHA: violated
So, you're saying it's in Kansas?
Apologies to 'The drug of the nation'
International corporations are in an impossible position with it comes to bribes. I don't know if it's the case in Panama, but in many countries refusing to pay bribes is the same thing as refusing to do business in that country. If all your competitors are paying bribes, what are you supposed to do?
When the US Congress passed a law making it illegal for domestic companies to pay bribes to foreign government officials US companies were shut out of billions of dollars in African contracts. Is the world a better place? I don't see it.
What corporation doesn't pay bribes in order to do business in the colonies ?
DHS moved to SAP recently. Why? is still being debated.
My (probably too charitable) assumption is that Trump is just a highly pragmatic businessman who sees stuff like paying off politicians as an undesirable but unavoidable part of the existing system. He made a statement like that at the debate regarding bankruptcies where he said he was just using the system as it existed.
It's just the rules of the game as it exists. You can play by them and achieve your goals, or you can take a moral stance and achieve your goals, but suboptimally (higher costs, longer delays, etc) or not at all. Your competition will likely play by those rules and if you don't, you're at a competitive disadvantage.
If (and this is a big if) Trump sincerely believes the system is broken (despite playing by its rules), he is kind of uniquely qualified to fix it because he knows how to fix it on the buying side. Politicians never seem to want to eliminate money-for-influence because they are on the benefits side, but somebody like Trump could (all very theoretically) fix it by making government provide the results without making greasing politicians a requirement.
All this being said, I'm not a fan of Trump for the most part. But there's this kind of weird angle you can look at him and find his track record of business success somewhat impressive and his somewhat chaotic pragmatism appealing.