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The company that bribed the world
- brudgers 11y agoThe Huffington Post story reads a bit more concretely, [perhaps due to differences is liable laws?]. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/unaoil-bribery-scandal-corruption_us_56fa2b06e4b014d3fe2408b9?utm_hp_ref=australia http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/unaoil-bribery-scanda...
- burkaman 11y agoYeah, awful title, but it's a much better article.
- SeanDav 11y agoI don't see a lot of difference between bribery to get something done and lobbying to get the law changed so you can get something done. Note that I am equally disgusted at both of these.
- rayiner 11y agoWhat do you think lobbying involves?
- SeanDav 11y agoHere is an interesting article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corp...
- ryao 11y agoThat does not explain how they get their results. By the way, is it illegal if the bribes are called campaign contributions or are sent to places the target wants money to go, like a charity that helps their political ambitions?
- rayiner 11y agoIf there is a quid pro quo, then it's illegal, regardless of how the payment is characterized.
- ryao 11y agoThen how do lobbyists achieve results? The idea of a lobbyist seems like an impossibility to me without quid pro quo.
- kazagistar 11y agoBy providing data and arguments? The idea of a lobbyist is that you hire someone to go to Washington and suggest the politicians do what you think is the right thing.
- rayiner 11y agoLobbyists: 1) get issues on politicians' radars; 2) provide them with data, arguments, and sample legislation to advocate for a position; and 3) convince politicians that particular measures will be favored by relevant constituencies. It's almost never going to be the case that a lobbyist will convince a politician to support a measure they wouldn't otherwise support. Politicians all have agendas and preconceived notions. The most important thing lobbyists do is help politicians filter through he universe of proposals and convince them that particular ones fit within their preconceived worldview and platform. I think many people have a hard time even conceiving that politicians could support big companies without getting some sort of kickback or campaign contribution for doing so. But a politician's first, second, and third top priorities are jobs. Big companies control the jobs, and for better or worse what's bad for big companies is often, at least in the short term, bad for jobs.
- ced 11y agoI upvoted because it's an interesting perspective, but I'd like to know where you get this information from. Is it a first-hand account? It makes sense that jobs are a priority and that politicians prioritize helping companies. And I'm sure that "a lobbyist will convince a politician to support a measure they wouldn't otherwise support" happens at least some of the time, but I don't have a sense of how frequent that is vs. legalized bribery and regulatory capture. And besides, if a politician passed a bad law thinking he did a great thing for society because corporate marketing was very convincing, does that make a difference?
- rayiner 11y agoThat article gives zero insight into what lobbying actually involves. So I ask you, what do you think it involves?
- logfromblammo 11y agoI think of it as advertising tailored and targeted at a small set of specific individuals. The advertiser has to compete for the scarce resource that is the attention of the target, then make an impression sufficiently memorable that it will change future behavior. As such, the lobbying will take a different form for different targets, based on their individual preferences and personalities. For some, lobbying will actually take the form of accosting a senator in the lobby of their office building to discuss a possibly overlooked consequence of a bill up for consideration. For others, it may take the form of anonymously mailing some blackmail photos. For others, it may be cash in an unmarked envelope. My impression of lobbying is that it involves anything and everything likely to produce the desired result within the allocated budget. Some lobbyists are better positioned to influence specific issues than others. If you are not allowed to lobby by offering a bribe directly to the person who must be swayed, it is always possible to work your way down the chain of social connections to someone or several someones that can be bribed to carry your case to that person on your behalf. If you can't bribe the senator, hire their spouse to change their mind. If you can't hire the spouse, hire their best friend. If you can't hire the spouse's best friend, hire the extramarital romantic interest. If you can't hire that person, hire a photographer. As long as getting the attention of a government office holder is worth more than what it costs to obtain, there will be lobbyists available to purchase it wholesale and resell it in manageable parcels.
- hjhgjtyhgdfi8 11y agoOne involves the First Amendment. The other is illegal.
- BurningFrog 11y agoRemember that any political campaign to change a law, like legalizing same sex marriages, is lobbying. Many seem to think it's only campaigns you don't agree with that are.
- joshjkim 11y agoIn terms of developing countries that are the subject of this story (with no real campaign finance frameworks and/or enforcement, and maybe not even open elections), I think you're right to say there's probably no real difference. However, in the US and other countries with (relatively) developed election and legislation processes, I think there's some key differences: Lobbying usually requires a level of policy rationalization (however disingenuous) that bribery does not. Lobbyist can say behind closed doors that they want X for selfish reasons, but in order for it to be politically tenable the legislator usually will require at least some publicly defensible rationalization for the action. Similarly, lobbying usually involves the legislative process and getting a political actor to make certain political/legislative decisions that would benefit the lobbyist's clients. Bribe's usually involves getting a person in power to make decisions that often don't involve the political process or legislations, like the awarding of a contract by an agency under their control, or withholding an investigation. Seen this way, lobbying can be and has been characterized as interest groups subsidizing the legislative process by providing competing research and proposals to an understaffed legislature. Whether that's a good or bad of making law is another discussion, but I think it's fair to say that bribery could not be considered that way, and therefore serves no acceptable public purpose other than the enrichment of the briber and bribee.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoI don't think you can avoid lobbying, though. I do not consider all lobbying everywhere to be anything like unethical nor immoral. If you think that this must be adversarial, and that The People must get completely impartial ... justice in dealing with all economic entities, then you must expect to match those entities blow for blow. But there are information and resource asymmetries in play that are profound. This ignores that some people simply view activities differently, which will greatly increase the cost.
- akiselev 11y agoBasically all types of bribery is corruption but that does not mean that all types of lobbying is bribery. Grassroots movements organize all the time using donations from its members which they then use to send a lobbyist (a member of the org or a professional) to Washington, where they can use their personal contacts and influence to get an audience with a legislator to provide them with information. Most lobbying, I would wager, is of that form: a lobbyist simply informs the legislator about the on the ground perspective of a grassroots movement's members, a corporation, or industry group. It only becomes distasteful when a lobbyist has influence over campaign contributions or the ability to provide "perks" like hiring a politician's friends or family. You can argue that campaign contributions are a form of bribery but there remains the big difference that in well regulated nations, all of the donations have a maximum and are tracked publicly [1][2]. In the US, all campaign spending is released publicly, both by politicians/political NGOs and campaign finance improprieties destroy political careers quite often. In the US, the FEC has the authority to enact civil penalties and the DOJ has the authority to prosecute any politicians caught willfully misusing campaign finance to better themselves. [3] [1] http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/norindsea.shtml http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/norindsea.shtml [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/ https://www.opensecrets.org/ [3] http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_compliance.shtml#penalties http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_compliance.shtml#penalties
- burkaman 11y agoLobbying is just telling a representative your views, which is how democracy works. What I assume you mean is giving campaign contributions in exchange for influence, which is bribery and is illegal if you can prove quid pro quo. Corporate lobbying is questionable for other reasons, but it's not bribery. It's on elected officials to not let businesses influence them too much, no matter how many lobbyists they hire.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kelvin0 11y agoTL;DR : Vast amounts of money for natural resources bring about vast corruption in unstable states.
- nickkline 11y agoWhich creates an environment that extremist groups use to successfully radicalize large groups of people frustrated by the rampant & immoral corruption. (At least that was my biggest takeaway)
- kelvin0 11y agoIn turn these Extremist groups are funded by the CIA and Pentagon and fight each other. http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-i... It's the circle of (a corrupt) life ...
- mturmon 11y agoI have a heuristic principle that corruption is endemic to resource extraction industries (oil, gas, timber, mining). Getting something for nothing (and externalizing the costs) is somewhat the premise of the whole enterprise.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoNot for big extraction corporations that have a lot of surface area to fire at. The downside risk is just too great. This being said, the combination of an African-style failed state (or outright kleptocracy) and rich natural resources creates a special case of the Resource Curse. When it comes to a stable legal system and low corruption, Americans were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
- joshjkim 11y agoCynical reaction: well, we all knew someone was doing it, now we've identified a few. One thing I can't help think here is: this is just another uncomfortable truth re: what a truly global economy looks like (frankly, similar the factory jobs leaving the US for cheaper labor countries, etc.). The bottom line is that in many developing countries, bribery is part of the economy, and if western companies want to engage in the economies of those countries, then it's not surprising that they need to participate wholly. Because of western anti-corruption laws, they of course can't engage directly, so these Unaoil folks found a solid business opportunity to exploit. What sucks of course is that western companies often have funds to overpay vs. the local bribery market, so they end up reducing local economic competition, slowing internal development, flooding incumbents with cash, keep incumbents in power longer than they would be otherwise, and contribute to their illegitimacy. They still should stop, I guess my point is that corrupt systems (usually) pre-existed western corp. participation. If I'm being optimistic, stories like this hopefully will motivate the US and other western gov. to recognize this reality, and then actually develop and enforce international laws to handle this effectively - though I wouldn't hold my breath =) (Of course, the involvement of western governments in colonization and in creating this atmosphere is a whole other discussion, which I won't start here..ha)
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- abraae 11y agoCorruption is diabolical, and the worst form of tax - one where no benefit from the tax flows to individuals other than the fixers. But with climate change, I find it hard to get upset about any corruption that causes the price of oil to rise. The current situation of rock bottom oil prices encourages more consumption and reduces the incentives to improve energy efficiency. It makes it harder for renewables to compete. Bring on more corruption. Let oil prices boil over.
- trhway 11y ago>any corruption that causes the price of oil to rise. it works the other way. There is no environmental controls and proper taxation on corrupted contracts by corrupted governments. So the price of such oil is cheaper. Just think - who would pay a bribe to obtain something for a higher price than it would be without a bribe? >The current situation of rock bottom oil prices and the cheapest oil is from ISIS - one of the reasons for current low prices. It is the most corrupt oil - to get into your car as gas it passed through the most corrupt laundering "pipelines" in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and further to Ukraine and Poland...
- ccarter84 11y agoGood thing DoJ staffed up that kleptocracy unit
- randomgyatwork 11y agoThe worst part is that most people probably figure stuff like this is already happening, so we become cynical, when we find out its true our outrage is used up, then we see our powerlessness and realize that our leaders are probably in on the game already.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoHate the game, not the player. We're not powerless, but trying to create a Perfect System out of such crooked timber as Man may be utterly futile. To think you can design such a system looks like Hubris to me. That's probably more Stoic than Cynical. "They can take my silver or take my lead" said Pablo Escobar ( paraphrased ). It's like that.
- seangrant 11y agoYeah we're operating at a level never before seen in sociology. It's inevitable we'll have some hiccups and bumps along the way before we reach a system that uniformly benefits everyone. And even then, the ability for such a system to exist is debated.
- justsaysmthng 11y agoThe world is extremely corrupt. Widespread corruption is yet another issue hanging over our civilization which we've never had to deal with before in our history. People in the western world usually don't realize just how deep the rabbit holes go everywhere around the world and it's very sad. I've lived in many countries and I speak 6 languages, including Russian, Spanish and Portuguese, which gives me access to local press in many parts of the world. From Brazil to Turkey, to former Soviet Union to India to China to Latin America, to Africa and the Middle East - the press is teeming with corruption scandals and political unrest triggered by corruption everywhere. All this fantastic economic growth that we've experienced in the last 20 years - all those titanic infrastructure projects, olympic stadiums, high speed trains, highways, new factories, gold mines, oil fields.... had the effect of producing a kleptocratic global "elite", which currently sits on piles of offshore bank accounts and "own" the power in most of the world, including military. The western companies have gained a lot from this status quo, having shown positive growth year after year, much of it from expansion into foreign markets, which made investors and regulators happy, yet all that growth helped feed and grow the corruption monster to an incredible size. Russia is so corrupt that people have stopped perceiving it as something wrong, rather they internalized it as something unavoidable and "part of the culture" - they've long lost hope of fixing it, given that the political elite owns the legal system, police, armed forces and any dissent or attempt of uncovering the scale of corruption, is quickly eliminated, as was the case of Boris Nemtsov last year. In Moldova, corrupt politicians allowed a group of criminals to extract $1 billion or 1/8th of the country's GDP into offshore companies and that money was never recovered. It was both sad and comic to see the people on the streets shouting "we want our billion back". Yeah, right. A former Romanian minister was sentenced to prison in the Microsoft licensing corruption scandal just two days ago. More than $50 million have been paid in bribes in that scandal. Note that we're talking about a small country and just one company. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine, in fact most of the former USSR (except maybe the Baltic states) are corrupt beyond imagination. People in Brazil are rioting on the streets right now because the current president gave immunity to the former president, accused of huge corruption and money laundering allegations. Venezuela is currently a failed state mainly because of the corruption on all levels. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria are failed states with terminal corruption, which inevitably leads to war. Africa .. I can just guess. I don't know many details about Asia, but I wouldn't wonder if the picture is similar as in the rest of the 'developing' world. Corruption is injust, it leads to cynisism and criminal political interest groups, it strengthens the criminal organizations and people loose hope. Eventually it reaches a boiling point, which results in rioting and war, the radical method of reshuffling the power structure. Sorry for the long comment, but I feel like this issue is on par with climate change - and actually a cause of the latter, so there, I've said it.
- rwmj 11y agoAre all these companies (Rolls Royce, Samsung etc) going to get in trouble under FCPA / Bribery Act? If I remember from my corporate anti-bribery training [very necessary for a low-level computer programmer!] you can't get away with it just because it was done through a third party.
- dba7dba 11y agoRolls Royce and Samsung are not American corporations? Or does the law penalize American subsidiaries of them?
- maerF0x0 11y agoThe american justice system can judge wether or not they're allowed to continue to operate in america.
- dba7dba 11y agoThe American justice system that hasn't punished Wall Street? But let's assume American justice system works. But still it seems arbitrary and not clear cut. If Rolls-Royce is banned from operating in US, does that mean Boeing won't install Rolls-Royce engines on airliners they make for their customers? Samsung is composed of many subsidiaries that do not look out for each other and it may be that just one or few of the Samsung subsidiaries are involved in bribing. Samsung phone division buys chips from qualcomm instead of Samsung chip division because qualcomm is cheaper (or whatever reason). Will US court ban Samsung from US? Then what happens to the billion dollar chip plant in Austin, Dallas that supplies CPU chips for Apple iDevices? I don't condone bribing but to me I'm not surprised bribe was needed to get anything done in the nations listed. I'm pretty sure anyone and everyone who has any kind of influence in the said nations require bribe before doing anything. A billion + dollar from US went into Iraq that can't be traced. What's a few hundred thousand or a few million dollars? I highly doubt these companies eagerly bribed people, but they to get anything done in those so called nations, they probably had to bribe.
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- harry8 11y agoThe link from the bottom of the page is down. https://fraudsec.com/reports/add/NickMcKenzieFairfaxMedia https://fraudsec.com/reports/add/NickMcKenzieFairfaxMedia I wonder why? I wonder if fairfax know what they're doing setting up anonymous dropboxes or if they're encouraging sources into taking unnecessary risks.
- narrator 11y agoI think this kind of thing makes a strong case for paying bureaucrats higher salaries. People who are in charge of huge decisions are usually paid pathetically and everyone complains that integrity should rule, but it never happens. The amount of revenue lost to the government due to corruption is quite large and governments would save a lot of money by paying bureaucrats in charge of these major decisions well. Singapore, which pays its bureaucrats multi-million dollar salaries, has one of the least corrupt governments in the world according to Transparency International.
- ACow_Adonis 11y agoDoes transparency international include the appointment of those bureaucrats in its measurement of corruption? (I honestly don't know). The cynic/economist in me says that this would be a classic case of "waterbed" economics. That is to say, any pressure pushing down in one part of the system results in a subsequent rise somewhere else. If you define corruption as a particular localised phenomenon, then pushing down in one area and measuring that area looks like things have gone down. But there are many undesirable things in our societies (network effects, self censorship, rich ruling families, artificial barriers and rent seeking,etc). I know I've had many conversations with my wife where I've said "if this happened in any other society/market, we'd call it corruption, but here it's just "the way things are/our governance system". So to bring it back to Singapore and economic theory, I would posit that the appointment to those highly paid positions would become the point of corruption as the wages/power/connections increase, though we'd probably start to call it something else (having the right connections, belonging to the right families, going to the right schools). I know, incidentally, very little about Singapore...I'm just making general theoretical predictions here...
- orangkiwi 11y agoSingapore might not be corrupt at the ground level (police, low-level bureaucrats, etc) but any country where the Prime Minister's wife is in charge of the main government investment company should not be considered clean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temasek_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temasek_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching The former Prime Minister (Lee Kuan Yew) was in power for 31 years. His son is in power now. People don't hold on to power for that long by playing fair. Singapore is also known as the Switzerland of the East, not least for the fact that their banks are among the favourite destinations in the region for the proceeds of corruption.
- aryehof 11y agoFor me, reading this was a sad salute to human greed.