Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 409 posts

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#111

Post by mc32 »

ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #92
mc32 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the US considers it illegal. But if you’re a Bulgarian executive running the Bulgarian subsidiary of a US company, they may do things closer to local custom despite US corporate directives. You’re demanding that foreigners extirpate their foreignness while they are employees of a US company. It’s not going to happen 100%.

By enforcing anti corruption on the parent company in the US, the parent company should in turn communicate and enforce their own anti corruption stance and policies on their foreign subsidiaries or branches. If there is no consequence for the parent company then the opposite might happen: extra money used for bribes is provided to the foreign subsidiaries with a wink; now the corruption is increasing.

You have to consider that local competitors and other foreign competitors may not have any issues with bribery, maybe they’re both from cultures where bribery is normal.

Now you’re asking a local executive to paddle up river while their competitors go down river.

Unless you have a somewhat leveled playing field it’ll be an uphill battle.

I believe there were espionage scandals in Europe by US intelligence where US companies were given confidential info on other negotiations —this was ab attempt to level the field in the face of what the US saw as unfair competition brought on by bribery.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#112

Post by digisign »

nashashmi wrote: post #30

There is a lot of supposition from the article based on a single source that these payments were bribes. These kinds of articles are really calling wolf when there are none. And potentially downplay instances when actual wolves are spotted. This is a hit piece from a potential competitor trying to do business in the same market. Going to add further the article has way too much fluff. It’s a play on reader psychology…

What kind of payments should vendors be making regularly to customers?

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#113

Post by enugu »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #88
zelon88 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm somewhat confused. Here in America when you want to accomplish something like open a new facility you basically force the potential municipalities into competing with each other to win your favor. A big company will go to all the Chambers of Commerce in a given area and basically say "we're considering opening a 100,000 Sq ft facility and hiring 300 people. What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?" Th…

I'm originally from a small part of India, and the logic is quite simple. In your example, 300 jobs = 300 votes. But it would require millions in incentives to the company. But the local politician can just "buy" 300 votes with 300,000 INR (indian currency; 1000 rupees for 1 vote). So there is no point spending so much money on a facility when you can simply buy all the votes you need.

Election money is important but the role it plays is somewhat different.

Politicians do often woo companies to come to their sate.

A job (particulary a well paying one) creates a lot of economic activity and can make that region prosperous. Politicians want this both for votes created due to prosperity but more importantly, once the region becomes rich, they have more money for their social schemes and freebies which is a prominent part of how they come to power. Not to speak of more bribes obtained in richer areas.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#115

Post by maxsilver »

zelon88 wrote: post #81
igetspam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in India once, I ran into a friend from Google who was out there trying to build a data center. Total coincidence that we were both there at the same time. I was there to hire and train for another company and he was there to break ground. He'd been there for week and they'd yet to start doing more than some bare minimums related to surveys and permits. I was surprised that he was there at all, given the curren…

I'm somewhat confused. Here in America when you want to accomplish something like open a new facility you basically force the potential municipalities into competing with each other to win your favor. A big company will go to all the Chambers of Commerce in a given area and basically say "we're considering opening a 100,000 Sq ft facility and hiring 300 people. What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?" Th…

> What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?". Then the towns will bend over backwards, gut their taxes, ease their planning zones, and basically contort everything they can to become the most appealing location.

I mean, that's basically a bribe too, we just don't call it a bribe when we do it on our side.

"Woah, woah, woah. You can't just hand government officials money! That's bribery! You have to do business within their specific jurisdiction and trade favours on the planning and setup of your business (favours none of your competitors or existing other business will receive) all on the promise of future increases in tax revenues in exchange, *that's* how you hand government officials money!"

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#116

Post by seanmcdirmid »

vbezhenar wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the bribes being directed by MS US or are these things taking place in overseas offices where customs are different? One example was Hungary --I imagine Ukraine and Nigeria too would have executives there who are part of the local culture where they do things differently. While the actions go afoul of US law, they may be in line with local customs culture and practices --that is harder to root out as now you are…

I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials. I don't think that's necessary part of local culture. Of course in poor country officials with $200/month salary are happy to get $1000 gift for signing $100 000 agreement. Western companies are huge part of corruption source here. That's my opinion. I've heard that Ikea decided…

> I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials.

If the country requires bribes to operate in, and the western companies are operating in that country, then you can just do some simple logic to derive that they are bribing people.

However, a lot of western companies will simply just form legitimate contracts with local companies that will then "fix" everything for them. Things get even murkier when the western company forms a join venture with a controlling share local company.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#118

Post by throwaway0a5e »

ipaddr wrote: post #101
vbezhenar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials. I don't think that's necessary part of local culture. Of course in poor country officials with $200/month salary are happy to get $1000 gift for signing $100 000 agreement. Western companies are huge part of corruption source here. That's my opinion. I've heard that Ikea decided…

If Ikea did not bribe and failed to get approval perhaps it is part of the local culture of getting anything approved

Now if only people in the west would apply this same logic to their own communities.

Whole Foods isn't donating money to the private school that the children of some local politician to attend because of their belief in the school's mission. They're doing it because they want to redevelop a strip mall and a new soccer field costs less than anything that involves a courtroom.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#119

Post by user3939382 »

q1w2 wrote: post #94
vbezhenar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials. I don't think that's necessary part of local culture. Of course in poor country officials with $200/month salary are happy to get $1000 gift for signing $100 000 agreement. Western companies are huge part of corruption source here. That's my opinion. I've heard that Ikea decided…

Same in India. In fact, public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. It's just absolutely normal to get literally anything done with a government office in almost any non-western country.

> public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes.

I'd like to offer my own perspective on this issue, having spent a lot of time in the third-world, that may not be obvious to many of us in the western world or from more developed economies.

Many countries that are struggling with i.e. building robust transportation and energy infrastructure, are also struggling with the infrastructure that enables the reliable collection and enforcement of taxes. These issues happen to be related. Tax collection in the US isn't perfect, but it generally works. What do you do when huge parts of your economy runs on cash or when huge swaths of your population don't even have bank accounts?

There's a joke that bribes in the third-world are "directly paid taxes". There's a kernel of truth there. If Microsoft pays $100 in tax that's paid to a govt salary, versus that tax not existing and them paying it to the same official, what's the difference? Loss of accountability and oversight, yes.

BUT -- the reason bribery is so egregious in the West is that the officials taking the bribes are already fairly compensated. Also, the Western system of government is filled with unethical bribe-analogues, in for example the lobbying system we have, worse in some sense is that this unethical behavior is codified into law in a way the general public may not agree with but has no real way of changing (refer to Princeton voter preference study).

Consider all that when these "corruption index" lists are published where the US are the good guys with a green-colored country and countries in the third-world are red-colored bad guys. /rant

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#120

Post by mc32 »

q1w2 wrote: post #94
vbezhenar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials. I don't think that's necessary part of local culture. Of course in poor country officials with $200/month salary are happy to get $1000 gift for signing $100 000 agreement. Western companies are huge part of corruption source here. That's my opinion. I've heard that Ikea decided…

Same in India. In fact, public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes. It's just absolutely normal to get literally anything done with a government office in almost any non-western country.

One could argue it’s more efficient. If you need to get something done, at least there is a way to receive service whereas in the US because there is little bribery, you’re at the mercy of the bureaucrat who doesn’t depend on your bribe to survive and so has lost the incentive to serve you.
Post reply on HN