Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by adhesive_wombat » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 11:06 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #323

Qem wrote: post #10

My work involves a public sector organization in Brazil. In the last years there was a big push towards microsoft products at my workplace, to a point where emails with announcements from corporate IT sometimes looks and sounds like spam pushing MS products. Now I'm left wondering if that's related to bribes here too, or if it's just bad judgement/taste from IT leadership.

No need to wonder. Of course it's bribery. Most likely not by Microsoft, but by their local VARs, with tacit corporate approval. All the blood, sweat and tears we gave during the early 2000's to make FLOSS the standard, how we advocated for it on grounds of openness and auditability, how it would - and did! - help foster a local industry... All this work and see it being undone by the current government and their cro…

A bit like any time a local government makes a concerted effort to move to Linux, suddenly Microsoft magically finds a way to deeply discount Windows and Office just for them.

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

#382

Post by rosndo » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #348

sangnoir wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"

> It also shifts culpability to the individuals Very important to highlight this; since joining a different big tech company I have quickly realized how much the internal processes (everything from expenses to security posture) are structured to put the maximum responsibility on the person furthest down the totem pole. In small European companies I've worked for this would be considered a big red flag and a sign of b…

> In small European companies I've worked for this would be considered a big red flag and a sign of broken company culture, but for US companies it is seemingly the norm.

Try working for a big European company, it’s no different.

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

#383

Post by AitchEmArsey » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

rosndo wrote: post #382

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also shifts culpability to the individuals Very important to highlight this; since joining a different big tech company I have quickly realized how much the internal processes (everything from expenses to security posture) are structured to put the maximum responsibility on the person furthest down the totem pole. In small European companies I've worked for this would be considered a big red flag and a sign of b…

> In small European companies I've worked for this would be considered a big red flag and a sign of broken company culture, but for US companies it is seemingly the norm. Try working for a big European company, it’s no different.

Do you mean large EU companies are more similar to large US companies, or more similar to small EU companies? I presume the former, which would be a shame but not entirely unexpected since I imagine (in the tech industry at least) there is a lot of emulation.

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

#384

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #312

burntoutfire wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think Enron would have been better off if someone had blown the whistle early. Probably would still be in existence. Me, I'd be more likely to narc to the government, especially if I can get a share of the penalty like SEC narcs do.

> Enron would have been better off if someone had blown the whistle early

Blown the whistle to who and about what. As I understand it, Enron's brilliance was breaking up the actions so each low ranking employee was looking at legal things and you had to be quite high up to see the issues

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

#385

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #192

leetcrew wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meh. I'd be happy to sit in a chair and watch nonsensical videos for $100/hr any time you like.

Not when you have a deadline and your stuff is behind, you don't :-) Happily, it was better than that. Most of these courses were online, and you could just let the videos of actors working through scenarios run in the background and then answer some simple questions. The questions never varied and the correct answer was usually pretty obvious (e.g., don't pick any answer that includes hiding a body).

If I have a deadline and stuff is behind, it's my job to tell my boss. It's their job to get an exception so I take the training after the deadline. Also probably their job to get some of my tasks reassigned.

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

#386

Post by treis » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

xemdetia wrote: post #360

madrox wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is happening, then you're absolutely correct. However, there's no evidence that's happening...either in the Verge article or in the whistleblower's own words. All the whistleblower has presented is Microsoft's own PWC audits that resellers have been pocketing more money than policy says they should and that there are cases where company policy was violated. The leap from this evidence to bribery is, frankly,…

I'm in this camp here. The article does a poor job framing the actual involvement Microsoft had and the whistleblower's writeup doesn't do a good job either. They did provide instances in the original whistleblowing that bad things did happen.. but they also showed that a lot of them actually got some sort of punishment/reaction instead of just pretending situation normal. A buyer, a reseller, and a seller working to…

>A buyer, a reseller, and a seller working together to find a price that works by lowering the cost of goods is not a bribe since you know nobody is getting paid.

They're not lowering the price of goods. The non-discounted amount is still charged to the end customer. The difference in the amount charged to the customer and what's paid in licensing to MS is used as a slush fund to bribe the decision maker.

>Trying to say that licenses that were bought that never were used was bribery is just confusing.

Come on, it's not that confusing. They're inflating the value of the contract so that they can skim more off.

>Do some resellers who are external to Microsoft end up violating the FCPA or 'normal US business ethics' in some regions? Definitely. But they aren't in the US, so the right venue for whistleblowing the activity is in whatever-country-in-question under their laws. Just based on the article and whistleblower post it sounds like there is just an assumption that micro problems in his local leadership were macro problems. I am not convinced.

I don't understand how you're not convinced. MS has paid a fine for the exact same behavior across multiple countries in different regions. And here is a person who has been in the thick of it for 20 years alleging the exact same scheme with documents to back it up. It's a slam dunk case.

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

#387

Post by rosndo » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #383

rosndo wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In small European companies I've worked for this would be considered a big red flag and a sign of broken company culture, but for US companies it is seemingly the norm. Try working for a big European company, it’s no different.

Do you mean large EU companies are more similar to large US companies, or more similar to small EU companies? I presume the former, which would be a shame but not entirely unexpected since I imagine (in the tech industry at least) there is a lot of emulation.

Large EU companies are more similar to large US companies. Small US companies are more similar to small EU companies than large US companies.

Size brings more savvy lawyers.

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

#388

Post by pure_simplicity » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

a4isms wrote: post #259

gentleman11 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s frustrating that law only applies to the lower classes, and not to the upper corporate classes

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." —Composer and Software Architect Frank Wilhoit https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...

A surprisingly vacuous quote that continues the conservative/right-wing as pejorative quote while obfuscating the real problem. The real problem is elitism and corruption.

Compare the treatment of Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. Why is the conservative in the out group and the liberal in the in group?

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

#389

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #232

LorenPechtel wrote: post #229

Unfortunately, we are left with the problem that it can be very hard to tell the difference between a bribe and a grease payment. The latter are an unfortunate reality that companies can't realistically function without--and not just in the third world.

They're the same thing.

No.

A bribe is a payment to get them to do something improper.

A grease payment is to get them to do what they should have done anyway.

They look the same on the surface but they're very different underneath. The former is illegal, the latter is legal (but good luck trying to show it's not a bribe when it happens in the US.)

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

#390

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

tored wrote: post #244

joey_bob wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is a bit inflammatory, but in this clip from Scalia's testimony relates the overall concept well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0

Scalia has some good points, however some notes A gridlocked political system is not guaranteed to create "good legislation" as Scalia puts it, take US as a prime example of that, almost every legislation is packed with pork and other things unrelated to the legalisation itself. To Scalia defence he might have meant "not awful legislation", like avoid harming a minority, because of the bicameral legislature. But good…

> However in Sweden the executive power is divided in half, with the elected prime minister with his cabinet (regeringen) on the one hand and the independent government agencies (myndigheter) on the other. This is a separation of powers that US doesn't have.

The US does have not have this. That's why Biden couldn't fire the postmaster general, or the fed chair, or numerous other posts. Yes, the President fills the leadership roles when they are available, but they don't totally control many agencies.

Of course, they do control other agencies.