Yikes... I guessed they skipped the mandatory corporate ethics training videos or they just didn't care. This is the reason large employers have mandatory yearly training videos on ethics, sexual harrassment, insider trading and a plethora of other topics. I used to feel severely inconvenienced every year, "wasting productive hours", until I was aware of the world out there and how frequent are problems in these area…
People at that pay grade are seldom "inconvenienced" by company e-learning systems.
I have never heard of a major company that didn't advise its employees to pay bribes abroad. Whether it's legal or illegal is almost aside the point, someone can choose between either breaking some arcane, unenforced US law, or potentially spending months/years in some hellhole of a third-world jail or prison while the Embassy slowly negotiates a release. And in some places, that's assuming someone doesn't just "disa…
> I have never heard of a major company that didn't advise its employees to pay bribes abroad. That would be conspiracy. No, absolutely this does not happen. Now, at the micro level it does happen that individual executives rope their employees in to fraud at their direction. But absoutely no "company" anywhere "advises" its employees to pay bribes as a matter of policy.
You are entirely incorrect. One of the largest mining, minerals and petroleum companies in Australia has it right there in the employee handbook sitting on your desk on Day One.
> A high-level exec at one of the world's most powerful companies paying off a local LEO for a permit instead of, IDK, contacting the State or the Feds, is beyond inexplicable. The problem is that, at least in many jurisdictions, gun permits basically only exist as a means for police to solicit bribes. There's literally an entire industry of people whose job is bribing police departments to get gun permits. C.f.: htt…
This sort of thing is the result of a permitting policy called may-issue. Basically it means the party that issues permits, usually the local sheriff or police department, can deny a concealed carry application for any reason. States adopt this policy as a way of punting CC policy making down to the local level. In practice the may-issue policy has repeatedly proven to be an irresistible opportunity for graft. Despit…
>States adopt this policy as a way of punting CC policy making down to the local level.
They implement it as a wink and nod end run around the 14th amendment. The whole purpose is so that the states can play dumb when the towns "accidentally" install sheriffs/police chiefs who turn out to be racist and deny all the irish/blacks/latinos their rights.
Agreed, this makes 0 sense to me. There should be an explicit list of reasons for which police should be able to deny these permits, and the police should have to show their evidence as to why they believe one of these reasons apply.
The problem with this is pretty obvious. When some scumbag like a pimp or similar without a conviction goes for a permit, you end up in a situation where the police are enabling certain types of undesirable behavior. IMO, discretion for this sort of thing should be with a judge, not a cop.
Denying permits may not be as effective at thwarting career criminals as you may think.
I spoke on a panel with Rick Sung, the Undersheriff who allegedly withheld permits until Apple coughed up the iPads. At the end of the event, each panelist was offered a Starbucks gift card by the event organizers. Rick gave his Starbucks gift card to me, saying, "since I'm here as a public official I can't accept this. Otherwise it would be counted as a bribe." Wild.
What’s funny is he still accepted it, but he gave it to you. Seems like he was either not up on his ethics, or he just wanted to appear ethical.
He could have refused the gift. But not sure what California’s rule is, but I expect that accepting nominal gifts under a low dollar threshold is allowed.
People are actually downvoting my post (and the one where someone confirmed that this happened at three Fortune 100 companies). It's one thing to be a boy scout, but it's another entirely to get accused of severe, frivolous charges while abroad, or to drive up to an armed cartel/militant roadblock, and then say "I'm sorry, bribes are against corporate policy and illegal in my country" when asked for $50. Shame on any…
I think people in the overall thread are getting confused about different kinds of bribes. A bribe needed to get a lucrative contract for your company: not ok. Paying off a local cop so he won't throw you in jail for no reason: totally ok. The US is concerned with preventing the former, not the latter. I would be surprised if any US company is advocating people pay the first kind of bribe, at least publicly, as that'…
Absolutely. This is a good point.
Courtside tickets to an NBA game? Not okay.
"Your vehicle does not have the permits. You need to come with me" at gunpoint in sub-Saharan Africa? That's a matter of life and death, potentially.
It looks like the iPads were for the department, not the guy's personal use. It's a little bit dubious given that it's the same agency asking for and receiving the benefit, but money is fungible. Suppose the Sheriff had insisted on iPads for some other department, like the schools. Governments do stuff like this all the time. In fact constituents get mad when they don't . The Planning Commission is considered derelic…
It's almost like the system of permits for concessions is actually a corrupting force in cities! In my city many development projects went ahead because of various promises (low income housing, cultural venues, etc) and the developer didn't follow through in any meaningful way - i.e. a theater was built, no shows ever took place there. Or low income housing was transitioned to market rate housing within 5 years. But…
When it's the commissioners driving the negotiation, the sunlight angle is true. Often, though, it's the activist group which rallies speakers against the project and then negotiates with the developer privately. The developer makes a donation to the activist group, and then members appear at the next meeting to withdrawn their objection. I've seen the tail end of one of these in 3 or 4 of the ~25 planning meetings I've watched.
I think this is the particularly pathetic thing. Low level LE does this all the time, but in this case, Apple (and the security guy) should have reached out to their (likely) myriad contacts within the FBI/DOJ/CA State. It’s one thing if the little guy caves to government extortion. It’s another thing altogether if the big guy is willing to tolerate it where it could do something about it.
Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make. GP is appalled at commenters breaking for Apple, and I'm just pointing out that their response is best understood as a projection of themselves into Apple's shoes. And in that case the response is reasonable. But of course the unreasonable thing those commenters need to realize is that Apple is insanely powerful and insanely powerful institutions putting up with corruption…
Is it ‘Apple’ or is it the head of security though?
I've gone through various "International Training" sessions at my company and one of the things they teach is that if a foreign official says something like, "hmmm... your papers are invalid, but I can help you out for $100" or similar, you should pay and immediately report (and expense) it on return. I know one coworker who went through this traveling through a small country.
I had corporate training, annually, that said to do the exact opposite. We were not even allowed to give or accept innocuous gifts like tickets to a game without getting it approved by our legal department.
That's an entirely different class of bribe. There is no personal threat to you there. In some parts of the world, your livelihood, if not life, may be threatened.
"Call Legal if the police officer in Nicaragua is threatening to throw you in jail without arrest until you give him cash" is a reasonably sure way to put yourself at further risk/in grave peril.