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Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

nytimes.com

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Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#51
Question: What does the United States gain by disallowing US companies to bribe government officials outside the United States? From a purely logistical standpoint, it seems like it would make more sense for those other countries to police these activities, or for the US to give the information they have to those governments to fine the companies as they see fit in their own countries.

Why does the US fine US companies for illegal behavior outside the US? Is it just moral reasons? Or is there a diplomatic reason for it? Or a treaty that requires us to do so?

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to jail Walmart. That doesn't benefit anyone, it's just punitive. Jail the executives responsible under the usual criminal law.

so maybe sanction walmart to sell everything for a 20% discount for a month so that the benefits of punitive action accrue to its customers?

This arguably also punishes their competitors.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#53
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will just play devil's advocate. Sometimes different cultures have very different ideas about what is an ethical way of doing things. If you're passing judgement on Walmart here, I think you're also passing judgement on Brazilian culture. Of course, you're welcome to do so, and I might even agree with you. But if you want to fine Walmart for doing things the "Brazilian way" while operating in Brazil, then I think i…

That assumes corruption exists in these countries because people are OK with it, but that doesn't square with everything I've read about corruption. It exists because corrupt systems are difficult to dismantle. By analogy, imagine someone from outside the US making the argument that it's "just our culture" that makes it OK for a lobbyist to walk into a senator's office with a $20,000 check in hand ready to discuss po…

> OK for a lobbyist to walk into a senator's office with a $20,000 check in hand ready to discuss policy

Or maybe your wife is Secretary of State and OK's a Uranium deal right after you get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to give a speech to an empty room.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#54
post #51

Question: What does the United States gain by disallowing US companies to bribe government officials outside the United States? From a purely logistical standpoint, it seems like it would make more sense for those other countries to police these activities, or for the US to give the information they have to those governments to fine the companies as they see fit in their own countries. Why does the US fine US compani…

Citing wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Ac...

>In response to these high profile revelations, Congress enacted the FCPA to bring a halt to the bribery of foreign officials and to restore public confidence in the integrity of the American business system.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#55
post #51

Question: What does the United States gain by disallowing US companies to bribe government officials outside the United States? From a purely logistical standpoint, it seems like it would make more sense for those other countries to police these activities, or for the US to give the information they have to those governments to fine the companies as they see fit in their own countries. Why does the US fine US compani…

Moral and economic reasons. Without making it illegal for US companies to do it, there would be strong competitive pressures for companies to engage in bribery abroad, and honest US companies couldn’t compete.

Stepping back and thinking about the bigger picture, the FCPA is an example of a law that enforces economically beneficial morality. One of the things that makes America a good place to live, and economically successful, is that it’s not a bribe-based society. Bribery is a tax on economically productive activity, and it’s good for the economy as a whole to stamp it out.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't jail Walmart, but we should be able to jail its CEO. Perhaps if being CEO meant taking the risk of jail for the corporation's misdeeds, the job would actually be worth the ridiculous salary it pays out, and provide a much stronger incentive for the CEO to police illegal conduct internally.

Why not the entire C-suite and the board? Then you’d get some real accountability.

I'm pretty much a free market capitalist and I'm all for that. Mandatory minimums should be established for when companies violate the law in ways that seriously harm people, things like this should have you spend at least a few months in jail even if you "didn't have knowledge". Perhaps a lifetime ban from working at any publicly traded company as well, sort of like registering as a sex offender.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#57
post #51

Question: What does the United States gain by disallowing US companies to bribe government officials outside the United States? From a purely logistical standpoint, it seems like it would make more sense for those other countries to police these activities, or for the US to give the information they have to those governments to fine the companies as they see fit in their own countries. Why does the US fine US compani…

Because it doesn't look good - like it makes us look like an imperial nation - when we go around buying up governments through our corporations.

Yea it seems stupid now, but there was a time when America looked at the history of Europe and thought "that doesn't look like a good idea".

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#58
post #51

Question: What does the United States gain by disallowing US companies to bribe government officials outside the United States? From a purely logistical standpoint, it seems like it would make more sense for those other countries to police these activities, or for the US to give the information they have to those governments to fine the companies as they see fit in their own countries. Why does the US fine US compani…

Hard to complain about foreign companies bribing people in your own government, if you are happy for your own companies to do that to other governments. It would be hypocritical.

It would be like the U.S. having nuclear weapons and then complaining about other countries trying to develop them. Or if the U.S. promoted democracy but then used the C.I.A in South America to overthrow democracies.

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizen's United is not the only case relevant to the idea of corporate personhood. There's a whole history of corporations earning rights usually reserved for people. You can read the wikipedia page for "corporate personhood" if you want to learn more about the history of it and specific cases and rights afforded to corporations.

Since I just read about this in a course, the main reference (at least for Canada/UK/Commonwealth) is the Salomon case from 1895: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_v_A_Salomon_%26_Co_Ltd So, not new. I think people overreact to hearing that corporations are (legal) "persons" when in fact they are not anything like natural persons (no body, no constitutional rights). As I understand it, directors and officers are…

It did not, in the sense that it only clarified a constitutional issue. The crux is that while corporations are complex legal fictions, they are still ultimately property owned and managed by actual people with constitutional rights. Corporations inherit on incorporation the constitutional protections that the incorporators would have if they were acting directly. In the words used in the majority opinion of the court, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

Re: Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes

#60
post #35
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human beings are allowed to organize for the purposes of political action and whether or not they decide to form a corporation doesn't matter because "corporation" isn't a constitutional concept. Further, "personhood" means you can sue the corporation, it can hold property, etc. Lawyers usual call "corporate personhood" "legal entity."

> Human beings are allowed to organize for the purposes of political action and whether or not they decide to form a corporation doesn't matter because "corporation" isn't a constitutional concept Sure it does - if I am killed by a natural person due to negligence, the state can imprison the person who killed me. If I am killed by a corporation due to negligence, the state generally does not imprison any individual,…

Unfortunately, the way that corporations can own other corporations would render this moot, or at most, a mere matter of paperwork. Control of corporate assets would fall to the next highest "Corporation" in the chain, or, and this is a big or, if you went the more extreme route of forcing the assets/business into the stewardship of the State for the imprisonment term, the "life" of the corporation would need to continue as normal to meet the obligations the Corporation has toward vendors/shareholders, otherwise, they are out of what is rightfully theirs "without due process".

To meaningfully create a deterrent effect, there has to be a set of people who cannot avail themselves of the Corporate veil. That group of people would most reasonably be at a minimum the C-Suite, but frankly, I'm not sure you'd do anything but end up creating a practice whereby the "C-Suite" people end up becoming sacrificial, or are specifically structured into having some form of plausible deniability via isolation from information by underlings.

Corporations as a concept were extremely controversial, and rarely granted at first due to concerns of being able to absolve people of legal responsibility for actions undertaken under the flag of the Corp.

I think that a good middle ground would be that upon being judged against, a Corporation must for a period submit to serving a period in which their ability to operate is contingent upon the presence of State agents/regulators tasked with ensuring the previous behavior is remedied and no other problems exist. This includes all results of investigations into potentially illegal behavior becoming a matter of public record. This would have a satisfying parity with the practice of submitting to supervision by a parole officer.

There is some potential for abuse; but seeing as that system works just fine for petty crimes, I don't see why it wouldn't work for corporations.

There's also the bonus that it also in a way "punishes" shareholders by decreasing the opportunity for abnormal growth rates fostered by shady business practices.

Oh, one more thing.

Something may need to be done to prevent corporate engineering where assets are sold to other corporations, owned by a holding company, established for the purpose of buying out the sanctioned corporation's assets, poaching the employees, and effectively picking up where the last Corp left off, but cleaned of the government oversight. I'm thinking any liquidation or selling off of assets has to be handled through bankruptcy court.

You wouldn't necessarily want everyone staying, but I have the feeling no one would be comfortable with taking away the authority and mandate to clean up house from the Board of Directors, but I think the contents of their communique's w.r.t. the sanctioned corporation could become a (sealed for a time) matter of public record, with a State representative as a non-voting, or only tie-breaking vote on the Board

Anyway... My two cents.

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