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Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

ft.com

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Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#111

Post by ekianjo »

legitster wrote: post #101
ekianjo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody goes to jail for "lobbying" in the US while it is clearly about the same thing as bribery. Just a legal form of it.

This is patently untrue. A lobbyist is just anybody who meets with an elected official on behalf of a group. There are perfectly legitimate lobbyists, and many depending on the group they may even be volunteers. It just so happens that the lobbyists that get the most attention are those that represent the most powerful groups. But equating it with bribery is completely misleading.

> Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials.

From Wikipedia. So spending 460M USD on public officials. Was it simply to have 1:1 conversations with politicians?

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#112

Post by atoav »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #102
ekianjo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody goes to jail for "lobbying" in the US while it is clearly about the same thing as bribery. Just a legal form of it.

Bribery: Mr. Minister, buy from us 42 airplanes for $4.8 Billion and 800 Million will be deposited in off shore accounts of your choosing. Lobbying: Senator, my clients would like that the recent changes in the tax code stay as they are but the deduction on ....is increased. (maybe a dinner or a small campaign contribution, as other lobbyists will oppose this one) Very, very different.

Lobbyists usually call it "robust conversations" and that certainly involves giving money to politicians and other forms of quid pro quos. Institutionalized bribery.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#114

Post by akho »

ekianjo wrote: post #111
legitster wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently untrue. A lobbyist is just anybody who meets with an elected official on behalf of a group. There are perfectly legitimate lobbyists, and many depending on the group they may even be volunteers. It just so happens that the lobbyists that get the most attention are those that represent the most powerful groups. But equating it with bribery is completely misleading.

> Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials. From Wikipedia. So spending 460M USD on public officials. Was it simply to have 1:1 conversations with politicians?

That figure seems a bit low.

So you have 535 members of Congress. Other govt officials (State, trade and aid agencies, ...) foreign powers have a legitimate interest in meeting probably brings that figure to a 1000. Congresspeople have aides, staff, &c — who also need to be dined. To maintain the whole show, you need to have your own staff — well-educated, worldly people — who need to be paid, need offices to work in, ....

I don’t think anyone buys yachts from this.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#115

Post by parsimo2010 »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #102
ekianjo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody goes to jail for "lobbying" in the US while it is clearly about the same thing as bribery. Just a legal form of it.

Bribery: Mr. Minister, buy from us 42 airplanes for $4.8 Billion and 800 Million will be deposited in off shore accounts of your choosing. Lobbying: Senator, my clients would like that the recent changes in the tax code stay as they are but the deduction on ....is increased. (maybe a dinner or a small campaign contribution, as other lobbyists will oppose this one) Very, very different.

Lobbying: Senator, I hope you enjoyed this really nice dinner we cooked for you. Also, you are free to use this yacht (which is worth $800 million but we’ll just day it’s worth a couple bucks to keep the ethics committee happy) any time you please. No, this isn’t a bribe, the registration and taxes for the yacht will remain with our company but you can use it whenever you desire as long as you continue to help pass laws that are favorable to us. We’ll even write the legalese for how the laws should read.

Not so different. Granted, honest lobbying does occur at some levels (my friend’s dad lobbies for firefighters at state legislators), but there are some really scummy corporate lobby activities that look like bribery with extra steps.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#116

Post by onetimemanytime »

ekianjo wrote: post #111
legitster wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently untrue. A lobbyist is just anybody who meets with an elected official on behalf of a group. There are perfectly legitimate lobbyists, and many depending on the group they may even be volunteers. It just so happens that the lobbyists that get the most attention are those that represent the most powerful groups. But equating it with bribery is completely misleading.

> Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials. From Wikipedia. So spending 460M USD on public officials. Was it simply to have 1:1 conversations with politicians?

Congressmen didn't get $460M in brown bags or bank accounts, interest groups spent that much on lobbyists to meet them. No doubt campaign contributions, one way or another, followed but direct gifts are a no-no.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#118

Post by onetimemanytime »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #115
onetimemanytime wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery: Mr. Minister, buy from us 42 airplanes for $4.8 Billion and 800 Million will be deposited in off shore accounts of your choosing. Lobbying: Senator, my clients would like that the recent changes in the tax code stay as they are but the deduction on ....is increased. (maybe a dinner or a small campaign contribution, as other lobbyists will oppose this one) Very, very different.

Lobbying: Senator, I hope you enjoyed this really nice dinner we cooked for you. Also, you are free to use this yacht (which is worth $800 million but we’ll just day it’s worth a couple bucks to keep the ethics committee happy) any time you please. No, this isn’t a bribe, the registration and taxes for the yacht will remain with our company but you can use it whenever you desire as long as you continue to help pass l…

>>Also, you are free to use this yacht (which is worth $800 million but we’ll just day it’s worth a couple bucks to keep the ethics committee happy) any time you please.

Weird. Can you name one case where this happened?

https://ethics.house.gov/travel/travel-connection-official-d...

https://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/gifts

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#119

Post by Iv »

philprx wrote: post #106

Oh, very surprising, this news comes at the exact right timing for Boeing during the 737 max debacle ;-)

Reminds me of an old story:

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2003/06/12/airbuss-...

Maybe people here have never heard the EU point of view on it, so let me sum it up: Airbus bribed Saudi officials in the 90s to get a 6 billion contracts. It was "whistleblowed" by this then little-known agency: NSA and in the end Boeing got the contract. It triggered a EU investigation in what was then called ECHELON. A Cold-war era spying network that was being repurposed for economic intelligence.

Airbus defense was that in Saudi Arabia, nothing gets done without corruption and Boeing probably did the same, but of course, EU had no interceptions to prove it.

I often argue that Snowden told us very little new information and that the EU kney most of this since 2001. I don't understand why it took 15 years to become a public concern.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS_STUDY_538877_Affair...

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#120

Post by manquer »

akho wrote: post #114
ekianjo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials. From Wikipedia. So spending 460M USD on public officials. Was it simply to have 1:1 conversations with politicians?

That figure seems a bit low. So you have 535 members of Congress. Other govt officials (State, trade and aid agencies, ...) foreign powers have a legitimate interest in meeting probably brings that figure to a 1000. Congresspeople have aides, staff, &c — who also need to be dined. To maintain the whole show, you need to have your own staff — well-educated, worldly people — who need to be paid, need offices to work in…

Foreign governments have embassies and diplomatic staff for precisely this kind of work . Why do they need more than that ?
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