12 ms·
Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoStrange - WalMart used to be hell on bribes, years ago. The WalMart Engineer that visited our site would put a quarter on the counter when taking coffee from the free machine - because it could mean his job to appear to take any freebies whatsoever from any vendor/supplier! How the mighty have fallen.
- fallingfrog 7y ago“Culture is the foundation of everything we do at Walmart. We define culture as our values in action.. Service to the customer Respect for the individual Strive for excellence Act with integrity” -Wal Mart’s horseshit values statement, the same as the value statement of every other corporation. Why does every company bother doing this again?
- pmiller2 7y agoPretty much every corporation only has one value: make money for execs and shareholders. Everything and everyone else is secondary.
- hanniabu 7y agoEverything else is a facade
- chrisfinne 7y ago"Money before people," that's the company motto. Engraved on the lobby floor. It just looks more heroic in Latin. -- Veronica Palmer in TV series 'Better off Ted'
- droithomme 7y agoI wonder if any of these payments were a fraction of a percent of the donations made to political candidates in the US?
- anbop 7y agoWith no personal punishment for the execs, they’re probably gearing up for Decade #2 as I write this.
- jedberg 7y agoQuestion: 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?
- hammock 7y agoCiting wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act 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.
- rayiner 7y agoMoral 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.
- SolarNet 7y agoBecause 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".
- PhilWright 7y agoHard 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. <sarcasm> 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. </sarcasm>
- rayiner 7y agoI suspect people cynically demanding that CEOs be put in jail haven’t really dug into the facts of this or other FCPA cases. Holding the CEO liable for employee misdeeds is like holding teachers responsible for teenagers getting into fights or having sex. It’s a strong moral position to take (holding teachers accountable), but it’s wholly impractical and unfair. In a company with a million employees, it’s guaranteed that hundreds if not thousands are doing things that are illegal. That’s just statistics applied to human nature. When the company is multi-national the problem is worse. Conduct like bribery or tax evasion that is condemned in the US is socially accepted in many other countries. When some store manager in Mexico bribes an inspector, the CEO of Wal-Mart has absolutely no idea that it happened. You can probably go several layers down before you find someone who knew. The touchstone of criminal law is a guilty mind. When someone’s conduct is mharmful, we hold them liable for monetary damages. But only where there is personal moral culpability do we impose criminal sanctions. It’s the difference between wrongful death and murder. Ordinary negligence, and criminal negligence. This is an easy, bright line rule, and shouldn’t be compromised for anything.
- pmiller2 7y agoHow do you hold an immortal, amoral entity that can’t be thrown in jail accountable, then? Trivial fines amounting to 0.1% of EBITDA are not the answer.
- AndrewDavis 7y agoYou increase the fines to the point it becomes a fiduciary requirement to behave properly. If fines are low, companies will continue to behave poorly because it may be profitable to do so.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoLike we do now: you hit it in the pocketbook with massive fines. Also, the CEO may not go to jail, but the local people actually doing the bribery should.
- pmiller2 7y ago
- nefitty 7y agoI tried reading this in incognito and on outline and neither worked. Oh well.
- jonmc12 7y agofyi, Chrome 76 in beta with undetectable incognito mode. https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/1138471166115368960 https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/1138471166115368960
- winkeltripel 7y agoshiny, thanks!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- noident 7y agoYou can use the NY Times onion service if you want to read it privately. https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/
- malcolmwhite 7y agoYou can get it working by blocking www.nytimes.com from using JavaScript
- dredmorbius 7y agohttp://archive.is/VFkFP http://archive.is/VFkFP
- np_tedious 7y agoBrave browser will do the trick
- jammygit 7y agoIs 280M just a speeding ticket? I wonder if they are met ahead or behind because of the policy.
- nerdponx 7y agoIt's just a speeding ticket. They are ahead.
- ghufran_syed 7y agoIt's 3.67% of that number - if you were a software engineer making $100,000 / year in the US, it would be like paying a speeding ticket of $3670, which is an order of magnitude greater than most speeding tickets in the US
- throw_away 7y ago$7.659B is the quarterly number, so divide your fine by four -> $917, which would still be quite an expensive speeding ticket, but within the max possible fines in my state.
- hanniabu 7y agoIt kind of would be like getting a ticket when you account the total cost with your insurance going up and that staying on your record for ~4 years.
- Avshalom 7y ago100,000 is gross revenue. Walmart's was $514B. 280M is then equivalent to $55.
- pmiller2 7y agoWalmart’s EBITDA for the quarter ending April 30, 2019 was $7.659B. I’d call $280M a very minor annoyance.
- 7y ago
- frequentnapper 7y agoJust a fine of ~280 mil, no jail time for any responsible. If corporations are people, why can't we jail walmart?
- nerdponx 7y agoI wouldn't want to jail Walmart. That doesn't benefit anyone, it's just punitive. Jail the executives responsible under the usual criminal law.
- khazhou 7y agoCorporations aren't people. You're misrepresenting Citizens United
- patentatt 7y agoThe gp comment doesn’t seem to mention citizens united ... why bring it up in response to a comment about corporate personhood? It is almost completely non sequitur
- khazhou 7y agoAlmost every modern reference to "Corporations are now people!" is a callback to Citizens United. If the commenter I replied to is not aware of and was not referring to that, I apologize. But... he probably was. A simple search for "corporation are people" or "corporate personhood" will bring up articles that immediately and extensively focus on Citizens United.
- neilv 7y agoDoes the US government offer any support to US companies that are tempted to engage in bribery overseas (other than attempting to level the playing field, among US companies, by outlawing any of them doing it)? That sounds potentially very delicate, for a variety of reasons, and interesting.
- ebg13 7y ago> Walmart was able to negotiate a lower fine after President Trump, who had previously criticized the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, took office. Can anyone explain a reason why someone who isn't a cad might not agree with the FCPA (ie. for reasons that aren't "money good, ethics bad")? This isn't a dig at Trump. I just don't understand the law well enough to know how angry I should be.
- ummonk 7y agoIn theory it could unfairly handicap American companies relative to foreign companies. This doesn’t seem to have happened much in practice though so I support the FCPA. Corruption is a big scourge in many countries and it is a really good thing American money is prohibited from exacerbating the issue.
- ebg13 7y ago> In theory it could unfairly handicap American companies relative to foreign companies. This really sounds a lot to me like "money good, ethics bad".
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoThat is basically a summation of “national interests” in the sense that politicians use it.
- mullingitover 7y ago> In theory it could unfairly handicap American companies relative to foreign companies. Seems like it would be sensible for the US to push the rest of the world to adopt the same law. We're able to push other countries to adopt our war on drugs laws, why not war on corruption?
- the_watcher 7y agoMany countries do have laws against corruption, but it's so institutionalized that the laws are functionally toothless.
- StillBored 7y agoSo, now its the US governments chance to hold out its hand. These are so trivial for a company like Walmart, and no-one is being individually held responsible. So it just looks like an official bit of us gov bribery, just like the fee's to avoid the security line at the airport. Cloak it in a bit of legal mumble jumbo and the us government gets its payout too. Frankly though too, these foreign anti-bribery laws seem so antiquated. Every year I have to sit through training for them as part of the corporate hand waving (we can't be responsible we trained our employees). Yet really it pales in comparison to the damage actually being done, and in the cases where the officials will actually take bribes just puts us based companies at a disadvantage to other foreign companies willing to pay the bribes. Especially in cases where the companies from other countries will waltz in with "infrastructure improvements", "cheap loans" whatever...
- drivingmenuts 7y agoWhat comprises the “mind” of a corporation? I would argue that the board and senior officers make up that mind and it’s their failure to demand or instill strong ethics allowed for these crimes to occur.
- StillBored 7y agoIn this case, yes that appears to be what happened. The low level employees reportedly raised the issues. From TFA: "But even as employees frequently raised alarm, the company’s top leaders did little to prevent Walmart from being involved in bribery and corruption schemes." Which is why no-one is going to jail, if it were just a low level employee you can bet they would be charged/fired and jailed. But since it went high in the mgmt chain, they likely can't just pin it on someone. The records likely got looked at, discussed off the record, and then got ignored without anyone's fingerprints on them.
- mruts 7y agoI live in Africa and pay bribes on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. It’s hard to do anything at all without bribes here, and I am certainly sympathetic of it. People who don’t have experience with 3rd world countriss often think it’s a big deal bribing someone. But it’s not, it’s a simple fact of life. I don’t really see anything wrong with a company doing it either. In fact, I kind of like paying bribes. Unlike in the US, I don’t really have to worry about doing anything illegal. I can have weed in the car, I can have out of date permits, I can really just do anything I please. I have money, so it’s all good. Of course, it’s worse if you’re poor. But then again, in America being stopped by the police when you’re poor is probably worse.
- pravda 7y agoSounds nice, in certain ways. Which country?
- boybd 7y agoSounds like Tanzania from post history.
- blub 7y agoCan't tell if joking or antisocial. Especially the line about "I can really just do anything I please. I have money, so it's all good." Obviously if everyone with money can do whatever they want, the trust in institutions plummets and more and more people start cheating, so one ends up with a society of cheaters who think it's normal to bribe.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoYea but not everyone has money, and those with money are saying that corruption is in a lot of way better for them. In some places, you can be drunk, or even kill someone and the cops will let you go for $$. If they take you in, it's not too late, just the price increases, the prosecutor and judge want their cut. A lot of mafia people have sentences cut or charges thrown out.
- 7y ago
- jgalt212 7y agoSomeone please pass a law making it impossible to charge corporations with crimes. People commit crimes not limited liability ownership structures.
- Bostonian 7y agoIn a corrupt country, paying bribes to get licenses and permits is often necessary for the copmany and beneficial for the citizens. India was known for having a "License Raj", which has done far more to keep India poor than any foreign company.
- cbush06 7y agoThank you.
- bengrunfeld 7y agoYes, but NOT ONE government employee will be punished over this.
- malloreon 7y agoIf your company is too big to keep its own employees from committing crimes, it's too big.
- harryh 7y agoNo company bigger than 100 people is capable of such a thing. Do you seriously think that companies larger than 100 people should not exist?
- umanwizard 7y agoI’d argue that no company bigger than 1 person is capable of such a thing.
- harryh 7y agoI kind of agree, but I was being generous with 100.
- Nasrudith 7y agoThe more important thing isn't the number per say (although they should be concerned) but how they are respond to it when they find out - and willfull ignorance is the same as knowing. If say the Catholic Church's response to their sex abuse scandal was to turn over all evidence to the authorities and maybe make own judgements in parallel to defrock or excommunicate based upon the evidence they would be morally upstanding even if their judgement differed in some cases as "not enough evidence by our standard / not enough to be illegal but violates our scriptural standards". Because they sheltered them for decades their moral authority is a joke and all priests being pedophiles is a dark comedy cliche.
- Zarathustra_ 7y agoI will preface this by saying I am not defending Wal-Mart. However, it is somewhat a cost of doing business in many countries. I have spoken with close friends from both Brazil, Mexico, and India, and it is very much part of how business is done there. I have also heard from numerous acquaintances that this is the case in China, including people who did business there. This does perhaps not justify Wal-Mart's behavior, but it provides some context and reminds us that companies (even those the size of Wal-Mart) have few options. Besides, promising to bring jobs to a certain area leads to more tax revenue, which in turn leads to fatter pockets for politicians. We delude ourselves to pretend we are perfect. However, America has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which does mean this could be more complicated. We recognize that someone else jumping off a bridge does not justify our doing so. And though we still have problems at home, we do try to police them. When a corruption scandal breaks, politicians usually are forced out of office; compared to many other places, this is good.
- hinkley 7y agoI worked at a place where the anti-bribery training covered corner cases where US law not only allows for bribery but you can write it off as a business expense. I was pretty shocked by this. > Regarding payments to foreign officials, the act draws a distinction between bribery and facilitation or "grease payments", which may be permissible under the FCPA, but may still violate local laws. The primary distinction is that grease payments or facilitation payments are made to an official to expedite his performance of the routine duties he is already bound to perform.
- Zarathustra_ 7y agoInteresting, I wasn't aware of that. That seems somewhat like a reasonable loop hole, though I can easily see how it could be abused. I appreciate the information.
- CMCDragonkai 7y agoI see this happen in Western institutions as well where if you want faster processing you have to pay some extra fee.
- evolve2k 7y agoThe fish rots from the head.
- salmo 7y agoI'm sorry, It's an unpopular opinion to hold, but the overseas bribery thing is a ridiculous standard to hold. [These opinions are just mine, and while I have them as opinions I would never act on them as a representative of my company, not that I would ever have the chance, and I don't work for Walmart] Over the course of human history, bribery has been the norm. I would dare to say that today, by population, it is the norm. It has obvious dirtiness in the US and Western Europe. And the US and Western Europe have tried to force this view on other nations, which have created laws that they don't pursue or prosecute. But criminalizing actions performed in another country based on morality in the US feels equally dirty. I don't mind the US handing evidence over to another sovereign nation for them to deal with, but prosecuting a crime on another countries soil over something that may not be seen as a crime in that country just doesn't make sense. I know, Walmart is "evil". It's southern US, and hits rural towns, takes advantage of US laws at scale (which would have been taken advantage of in small chunks that added up to the near total), etc. But, Amazon which is worse on the Walmart issues (low wages, overworked employees, stressed vendors, killing jobs) and then adds on to it traditional "antitrust" problems of vertical integration, and somehow gets a pass in our community because they're a tech company and "we" shop there. Can we get past the rhetoric and move on to the actual arguments?
- lasky 7y agoWell said
- tigershark 7y agoSo, just to understand, would you be against prosecuting pedophiles that go abroad in a country where having underage sex is not a crime to rape children? Over the course of human history it was perfectly normal to have sex with underage people, so it seems a rather fitting comparison.
- stickfigure 7y agoThat becomes a way more interesting hypothetical if you strip away the emotionally charged language. Let's say a twenty-year-old Californian goes to Canada, meets a 16-year-old, and they have sex. This is (according to wikipedia, don't rely on me for legal advice!) illegal in California and legal in Canada. Do you think someone should go to jail?
- lasky 7y agoI try to be careful with what is defined as bribery. It’s very easy to prance around on a high horse and cast out moral judgements when you’ve never had to open offices internationally. It sounds like no doubt some pockets were unapologetically made fat. It also sounds like they didn’t do a very good job of hiding it. I wonder if that’s because their then line of thinking was “paying to pay” is simply normalized in business. As I think about where the boundary is drawn for bribery, it’s interesting to see “offering cars and computers to governments” is framed as bribery, while somehow what local municipalities are demanding from giant tech co’s (ie Mt View / Google) is not.
- hatboat 7y agoYou obviously can't jail a corporation as you would a person in this situation. However, a person would absolutely be subject to asset forfeiture and proceeds of crime law in such a situation - do the same here. A paltry fine such as this is never going to prevent this behaviour. Determine as part of the investigation any revenue the company made from engaging in the behaviour and take it off them, in addition to the fine.
- chacha2 7y agoTop 7 comments, with the exception of the 4th, all defending Walmart. The levels of bootlicking on this site can be too much for me to read at times. If Walmart was a tech company I would have only assumed this was their doing but it's nice to know the community provides this service free of charge.
- cbush06 7y agoI don't see the problem. Overseas, in many third-world and developing countries, bribery is how business gets done. If you don't participate, you don't do business.
- ajhurliman 7y agoSomehow I just don't see this as a scandal, bribery is common in those countries and it would be out of place to _not_ bribe officials to get permits if everyone else is.
- lovely2 7y agoBen Avoid scam , fake and incompetent online hackers Meet a LEGIT and Trustworthy HACKERS with 100% Guarantee and you want to get your job done urgently withing one Hour or you are face with delay and unnecessary excuses and error on your job?. Then Worry no more because worldhackgod@hackermail.com are the Best in any hacking Services. They are ready to render and attend to your job with swift response and No delay at all. Their services are outlined as follows: . LONG TIME LOAN GIVING . PROFESSIONAL in SCHOOL GRADE changing . ALL FIXED GAMES and BETS SITES Hack . WHATSAPP Hack . FACEBOOK hack . PROFESSIONAL in any BANK ACCOUNTS TRANSFER .TWITTERS hack . EMAILS ACCOUNTS hack . WEBSITE CRASHED hack . SERVER CRASHED hack . SALES OF SPYWARE and KEYLOGGER SOFTWARE . RETRIEVAL OF LOST FILES and DOCUMENTS . ERASE and EXPUNGE of CRIMINAL RECORDS . DATABASE hack . SALES of ATM CARDS in WHITE . SKYPE hack . PAYPAL hack . Spamming and getting of any bank logs . Cryptocurrency account hack ‘ btc wallet hack, perfect money account hack and any money Wallet account hack . Btc mining tips and mining site hack, you get 2btc in 72 hours . Text messages and calls spoofing . Phone hack and bugging . Credit Cards Debt and Bank account debt payment . DROPBOX ACCOUNT hack . western Union and money gram hack for $1,000 to $10,000 to any country and Lots more.......... CONTACT: their services at worldhackgod@hackermail.com and you will be glad you did. whatsApp contact only - +1(657) 258 3306