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

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

#301

Post by themadturk »

worik wrote: post #257
mupuff1234 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many native windows apps are being used? It sounds like it's always gonna be a messy migration, but I wonder if you can somewhat simplify it by moving all users to web apps? Basically as an intermediate transition step to first decouple usage from the underlying OS.

In the end this is what will kill Microsoft Windows. It will not die because it a scary ball of buggy spaghetti, a security risk and an energy hog. It will die because people use cloud software in their browsers. Thank you Google (That hurt) Windows will continue, I fear, to power MRI machines, bank's server rooms, and (shudder) jet aeroplane cockpits and control software.

And British type 45 destroyers [0]

[0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/windows_for_w...

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

#302

Post by wolverine876 »

burntoutfire wrote: post #281
wolverine876 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People downplay such training, but imagine the environment without it. Imagine if nobody officially talked about corrupt practices: it would create a very dark place for such things to occur, nobody would know what the rules are or what to do, and especially the silence would speak very loudly. Edit: By training everyone , not just the people directly involved with such situations, anyone considering corrupt acts wil…

People know that what they hear in the training videos and how they must really act are two different things. If you find out that your boss's boss is corrupting goverment officials in Poland to get a $100m contract (a real case BTW, involving one of MS's big competitors), do you really think the company wants you to raise alarm and blow that contract? What good does it do to your boss's boss career, or the sharehold…

It's not a perfect solution, but nothing is. The training shifts the equation significantly relative to no training (as described in the GP). Our alternative to perfect solutions, if that's what we require, is to do nothing.

> What good does it do ... the shareholders?

Note that we commonly talk as if people will naturally care about the interests of one group of humans they don't know, the shareholders, but not another group, the public. Various rules say you should care about both (and there are many more rules regarding the latter).

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

#303

Post by jamal-kumar »

madrox wrote: post #296

I was prepared to get my pitchfork out, but after reading I'm struggling to connect the dots. This article is scant on details of what illegal or favorable behavior Microsoft is expecting in exchange for money. The only concrete mention is a previous SEC filing that has nothing to do with this whistleblower. The first example about $40k doesn't seem to explain what Microsoft was actually thinking it would get for tha…

An Overview

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq. ("FCPA"), was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.

Since 1977, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA have applied to all U.S. persons and certain foreign issuers of securities. With the enactment of certain amendments in 1998, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA now also apply to foreign firms and persons who cause, directly or through agents, an act in furtherance of such a corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States.

The FCPA also requires companies whose securities are listed in the United States to meet its accounting provisions. See 15 U.S.C. § 78m. These accounting provisions, which were designed to operate in tandem with the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA, require corporations covered by the provisions to (a) make and keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions of the corporation and (b) devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls.[1]

I'm not a lawyer, but at worst it's starkly clear to me that this runs afoul of the law. Might I suggest it may be the awareness of it is the something you are missing?

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...

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

#304

Post by seanmcdirmid »

aeternum wrote: post #167
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably is illegal but the countries have weak rule of law (if rule of law is even a thing in those countries at all). Note that there are differences between fees and bribery, if something can be legally presented as a fee, it is no longer considered a bribe (important if you are an American or American company).

This is why I brought up the example of pre-tipping. It is clearly not a fee but it is generally accepted. If you hand the Valet a $20 and say please park it close, is it a tip, fee, or bribe? How about at a bar, can you tell the bar tender "I have an extra $5 if you make it a heavy pour"? How about attending the Salesforce conference but it's mostly because you want to visit SF and see Metallica/Chainsmokers? We hav…

At least when we did anti corruption training for Microsoft China, the emphasis was on government employees, but that could also apply to grad students with stipends and anyone working for an SOE. So you can tip the doorman as long as they aren't working for the state, but you can't buy a grad student lunch (without pre-clearance anyways).

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

#305

Post by sangnoir »

burntoutfire wrote: post #281
wolverine876 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People downplay such training, but imagine the environment without it. Imagine if nobody officially talked about corrupt practices: it would create a very dark place for such things to occur, nobody would know what the rules are or what to do, and especially the silence would speak very loudly. Edit: By training everyone , not just the people directly involved with such situations, anyone considering corrupt acts wil…

People know that what they hear in the training videos and how they must really act are two different things. If you find out that your boss's boss is corrupting goverment officials in Poland to get a $100m contract (a real case BTW, involving one of MS's big competitors), do you really think the company wants you to raise alarm and blow that contract? What good does it do to your boss's boss career, or the sharehold…

> People know that what they hear in the training videos and how they must really act are two different things

It also shifts culpability to the individuals; aka CYA for the org. Corporate counsel will say "We have training for this every year; they knew they were not supposed to do that,and we weren't aware they were doing that, so it's not our fault"

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

#307

Post by mianos »

saiya-jin wrote: post #149
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #3

Former Microsoftie here. After all the business ethics training videos I had to sit through, I am infuriated by this.

In the banks we have the same. As IT guy, the amount of quarterly trainings and their focus is a bit crazy, most topics I will never ever touch since I don't work in ie Legal and I am so far from ever interacting or even seeing any client. Most of the trainings are about a fine we got due to being caught doing something bad, say 10 years ago, and part of legal settlement is apart from direct fine, a nice 30-60 min tr…

I did one "Modern Slavery". The first time I saw the email request that I do the training I genuinely thought it was spam.

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

#308

Post by saalweachter »

tedajax wrote: post #105
asd88 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. Every year, the Standards of Business Conduct training talks about not bribing foreign officials and devs are like “who the hell is ever in that position anyway?”.

Me desperately trying to get a decent repro case for a bizarre networking bug in Halo: "Oh man, gotta remember, better not bribe any foreign officials while I sort this out."

On the other hand, if network errors could be debugged by bribing foreign officials, I'm assuming there would be a lot of rather rich foreign officials.

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

#309

Post by xtracto »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #285

Why do Americans think that the rest of the world operates according to the illusion that America pretends to follow? Payoffs aren't always bribes. They're more like a tax.

Right... the PACs SuperPACs and other payments from private companies to lawmakers would be highly illegal in my country. Yet in the USA they are promoted and celebrated.

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

#310

Post by philjohn »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #201
verall wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand it, this shields the email from discovery. LOL that's NOT how discovery works

Them, a brilliant Google executive: "They cannot arrest a husband and wife for the same crime." Me, a low-level employee: "Yeah, I don't think that that's true, Dad." Them: "I have the worst [expletive] lawyers."

Remember - there's always money in the banana stand, no, wait, that's Amazon.
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