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."

Comments

Re:It Is Naïveté

[Adriax]

Yeah, yeah, we get it. You want some of that corporate america money for yourself but that annoying FCPA law stops them from giving you the bribes you deserve.

You're really dipping into classic villain territory here. Insulting someone for taking the moral high ground even if it means a minor inconvenience (slightly reduced profits).

How is this different from any other SAP sale??

[ErichTheRed]

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!!

International anti-bribery laws are dysfunctional

[gestalt_n_pepper]

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.