U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#11

Post by ImSkeptical » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:31 AM UTC

exelius wrote: post #4

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did they foresee this probe coming or is this something that they will have to scramble to react to? It depends entirely on whether or not this was a top-down decision. The most efficiently run companies consider the likely returns on illegal activity and the potential ramifications of getting caught. If the math works out in favor of the illegal behavior, they'll go ahead and do that. Depending on the nature of th…

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

I don't see why this is a good argument. If you can't do business without breaking the law, don't do business. Participating in bribery because everyone else does it is immoral, perpetuates bad behavior, and risks infecting your company with people who act illegally.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#12

Post by tryingagainbro » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:33 AM UTC

Gut feeling: they did it, early and often. In many countries that's the only way to operate it, especially if you're breaking the laws (taxi rules and regs.) A wire transfer or a suitcase full of cash will automatically make you complaint and a law abiding company...doesn't matter who complains about you.

They will throw the person under the bus and pay a huge fine, but it will definitely hurt them in a lot of countries.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#13

Post by tryingagainbro » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:42 AM UTC

ajdlinux wrote: post #6

exelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

I don't know about the US, but in Australia, our foreign bribery laws explicitly exempt "facilitation payments", i.e. bribes that are customarily paid to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and get routine government actions done. However, that certainly wouldn't cover anything like this alleged rape doxxing, and it also wouldn't cover bribes intended to secure new business, which are presumably extremely common in coun…

However, that certainly wouldn't cover anything like this alleged rape doxxing

The article didn't say anything about the rape case. Getting her info could have cost less than $100, but staying in business in certain countries could run in tens of millions.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#14

Post by rayiner » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:45 AM UTC

exelius wrote: post #4

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did they foresee this probe coming or is this something that they will have to scramble to react to? It depends entirely on whether or not this was a top-down decision. The most efficiently run companies consider the likely returns on illegal activity and the potential ramifications of getting caught. If the math works out in favor of the illegal behavior, they'll go ahead and do that. Depending on the nature of th…

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

> Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there

Regardless, it's illegal for U.S. (and U.K.) companies to pay bribes to officials in India: http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/5-tips-for-compan....

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#15

Post by exelius » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:48 AM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #7

exelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

Except in this case (if this is what happened??) they're paying a bribe to do something you shouldn't be able to do anyway. This isn't paying a bribe to conduct standard business, they're paying a bribe to access someone's medical records. I don't see how that is anymore acceptable if you're doing it in India than in any Western country.

It is more culturally complex than that. It's easy for us to look at it and moralize with western eyes, but bribery is simply part of the system in some places. People feed their families with bribes. Getting rid of the status quo won't happen overnight, and in the meantime companies have business to do.

Being shitty is still being shitty though; and doxing rape victims is pretty shitty.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#16

Post by rayiner » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:49 AM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

Note that the facilitation payment exception to the FCPA is (i) extremely narrow; (ii) still requires the company to accurately report the payment as a facilitation payment, which Uber probably didn't do: https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2014/06/17/the-fcpas-fa...

> On top of that, even if a grease payment is exempt from the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, if that payment were not accurately recorded as a facilitation payment in the company’s books, then the company would be in violation of the FCPA’s accounting provisions–and if the mischaracterization in the books was “willful and knowing,” this would also be a criminal violation. On the other hand, if the company were to accurately record facilitation payments in its books, it would be officially confessing violations of the host country’s anti-bribery laws, as well as the laws of other countries that might have jurisdiction over the transaction (such as the UK) that lack any exception for facilitation payments in their foreign bribery laws. It is perhaps for this reason that I’m not aware of any company that today formally records facilitation bribes accurately in its books.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#17

Post by Waterluvian » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:52 AM UTC

exelius wrote: post #4

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did they foresee this probe coming or is this something that they will have to scramble to react to? It depends entirely on whether or not this was a top-down decision. The most efficiently run companies consider the likely returns on illegal activity and the potential ramifications of getting caught. If the math works out in favor of the illegal behavior, they'll go ahead and do that. Depending on the nature of th…

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

Is the bribery allegation possibly just a vector of attack to deal with the more wrong thing(s) done? Ie. doxing a rape victim.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#18

Post by dreamcompiler » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:53 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

Note that the facilitation payment exception to the FCPA is (i) extremely narrow; (ii) still requires the company to accurately report the payment as a facilitation payment, which Uber probably didn't do: https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2014/06/17/the-fcpas-fa... > On top of that, even if a grease payment is exempt from the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, if that payment were not accurately recorded as a facilit…

Very interesting! Thanks. The FCPA is a minefield that I'm still trying to wrap my head around many years after I was first trained on it.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#19

Post by exelius » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 1:55 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #14

exelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

> Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there Regardless, it's illegal for U.S. (and U.K.) companies to pay bribes to officials in India: http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/5-tips-for-compan... .

While you are technically correct, I've had to personally pay bribes to get a laptop with a bunch of sensitive data thru customs. Importing electronics into India without the right paperwork is illegal, but only the manufacturer can apply for the paperwork.

The particular model of laptop was never sold in India (it was some cheap Dell thing - the data was the reason I shipped it). So I paid a nice $50 bribe to the customs official and got the laptop back no problem.

Was what I did technically illegal? Sure. But the bribe was the best outcome for everyone involved.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#20

Post by adventured » Wed, Aug 30, 2017, 2:03 AM UTC

ImSkeptical wrote: post #11

exelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

I don't see why this is a good argument. If you can't do business without breaking the law, don't do business. Participating in bribery because everyone else does it is immoral, perpetuates bad behavior, and risks infecting your company with people who act illegally.

The argument you're leveling is equivalent to: never start a business in any country and never do business in any country. It requires a perfect bureaucracy in terms of government and requires perfect knowledge by all participants and at all times (ie it will never exist).

Even well run nations generally have very large numbers of regulations on the books, frequently outdated or poorly thought-through, requiring you to regularly break the law just to function on a day to day basis typically without knowing that you're doing so.

You might as well argue we should just all commit suicide by starvation or general mass economic deprivation. That's the only thing pursuing your premise to its logical conclusion could lead to. Alternatively, figure out a perfect system of government that never has flaws or malevolent actors and figure out how to get people to behave as strictly programmed robots.