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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

#391

Post by beaconstudios »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #389
beaconstudios wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

If you're paying an official personally to "fast track" an official process, that's a bribe. Grease payments are just a subset of bribery. Just because it's normalised in some countries, doesn't make it a different thing.

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

#392

Post by mark-r »

wolverine876 wrote: post #256
robertlagrant wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the offending employees passed the training This is the definition of ineffective training :)

If they are aware of what is right and wrong, it is effective.

If they are aware but still do wrong anyway, I'd argue it's NOT effective.

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

#393

Post by taxyz23 »

Highly skeptical of this take. Lots of allegations claiming various payments are really bribes When all is said and done there will be few true bribes found and those will likely be by rogue relatively lower level or little supervised employees Suspect this is a disgruntled employee with a good lawyer who dreamed up a way to squeeze Microsoft. Who doesn't hate or want to hate Microsoft ? Big companies are well aware of the massive liability and associated legal costs under US federal law for bribery (domestic and foreign) and no way are they going to conspire systemically to destroy themselves. There have already been well documented and publicized federal bribery cases against companies such as Walmart. No legal department is going to tolerate bribery

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

#394

Post by tored »

HWR_14 wrote: post #390
tored wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 le…

The Swedish system goes deeper than that.

Compare the US Department of Justice with the equivalent in Sweden, in Sweden that would be split in multiple different organisations first with Departement of Justice, headed by the minister of Justice (elected politician) and a staff of civil servants, but they don't handle any criminal cases.

Thus there is several other government agencies like Riksåklagare (Prosecutor-General), Polismyndigheten (Police Authority), Säkerhetspolisen (Security Service), Ekobrottsmyndigheten (Economic Crime Authority) etc all independently governed by civil servants.

This is a central part of the Swedish constitution and is tradition that dates back several hundred years.

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

#396

Post by taxyz23 »

worik wrote: post #272

I have been reading the comments about bribing foreign companies. Very interesting I think it is pertinent to remind people here, especially subjects of the USA, that in the USA bribing politicians is a formal and accepted practise. Records are kept, they are publicly available. The hypocrisy of those politicians is legendary for all sorts of reasons, this is just a minor point. Bribery is only illegal if done inform…

This is very misleading particularly for those not familiar US laws. If you want to say publicly disclosed campaign contributions with no quid pro quo is bribery than say so but that's not most people's definition of bribery. Democracy requires campaigns and campaigns require money.

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

#397

Post by lkxijlewlf »

wolverine876 wrote: post #295
lkxijlewlf wrote: post #161

I am just so sick of all the cheating. Every time you turn around, some business, politician, or wealthy person is corrupt as f** and everyone who can do anything about it won't.

What are you doing about it? It's a democracy - like open source software, if you don't like it, change it.

Funny who always gets stuck with the burden.

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

#398

Post by [deleted] »

pure_simplicity wrote: post #388
a4isms wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

[deleted]

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

#399

Post by [deleted] »

pure_simplicity wrote: post #388
a4isms wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

[deleted]

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

#400

Post by hef19898 »

rosndo wrote: post #387
AitchEmArsey wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As soon as you do business interbationally, especially in the US, you have to follow the same anti corruption laws, business conduct and so on. I guess that's one of the reasons big corps are so similar with regards to those trainings.
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