Slashdot Mirror
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?
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...
It isn't "naïveté", it's an active policy. We are familiar with foreign corrupt practices; and duly enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act(unfortunately, there is no Domestic Corrupt Practices Act, so a major loophole remains unfilled). The act allows for certain exceptions; but is largely intended to prevent US companies and persons contributing to further corruption in assorted already-corrupt locations.
>> 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...
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:
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).
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
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)
Absolutely. I work for a multinational that has to get equipment into...less than reputable...parts of the world. If you try to ship something yourself to some countries, you can guarantee that most of it will be "lost in transit" or stuck in customs for months and months while a whole network of people get paid to get it through.
Companies that do lots of international shipping have to rely on "freight forwarders" These are the companies that actually pay the bribes, know the right contacts to get stuff through customs, etc. This way, the company doing the shipping is "protected" from directly bribing officials. As you can imagine, shipping bulk goods this way is not at all cheap!
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.
I am no expert in Panamanian culture but it seems to be accepted, even by the general populace. I have spent a bit of time in the area and greasing palms is how you get things done. Hell, it is how you function. Add an extra $100 to your gas money expenses just to travel. Carry gifts and currency. Carry AMERICAN currency. I have driven around in a giant RV (which they can really make a mess of but don't - they are out of sight and can more easily accept a gift or a cash payment) with way too many drugs in me and on me.
The important thing seems to be to know about it. I had good travel tips before doing any of this but still asked the locals. I am sort of fluent in Spanish but I know enough to flub it and pretend I do not understand. That, too, comes in handy. When they talk amongst themselves and mention getting more money from me then I know it is time to reach around and find some additional documentation to help prove that I am allowed to be there.
If you are going to carry drugs (and there does not seem to be much reason to go there otherwise - for me, though the people are awesome and honest) then hide them but do not make them look hard for them. In my case they are usually in the small fidge that my RV has. I invite them in, let them look around, offer them my documentation and, if need be, offer them a drink. They see the drugs and I give them more documentation. We shoot the shit, they speak English well enough, and they do not tear my shit apart. Some of them even do drugs.
I do not do any more opiates because I am tired of being addicted. Well, I still do my Suboxone. I still do sometimes go south and get a big pile of coke and have myself a hell of a good time. I sometimes smoke a little weed but, frankly, I get better weed here in Maine than I do in that area.
Do not bring firearms and do not attempt to bring things back across the border. Bringing stuff back requires a lot more work and a whole lot more documentation. Think of it as a holiday only just bring back t-shirts. Also, bars are an excellent source of information. I do not drink so I still go to bars if I need to find something and am not in the right area. Again, you will need money for information but, believe it or not, you can really (usually) trust the people.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
At least in the United States we put in the effort to come up with creative names for our bribes.
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.
What? It stops nothing. They spin an independent entirely foreign marketing division and know nothing of bribes from then on. Just high marketing costs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
American naÃveté is not realizing
Oh, we understand how the system works. It's called the " Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" (emphasis on foreign). Because it's perfectly OK* to slip US purchasing agents or executives cash, stock options, or Hookers&Blow to make sales.
*Government contracts excepted.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.