8 ms·

In Canada SNC Lavalin same things. This is not an easy thing though: the countries in which bribes are paid are run by corrupt people who expect kickbacks as p

by jariel 7y ago

In Canada SNC Lavalin same things. This is not an easy thing though: the countries in which bribes are paid are run by corrupt people who expect kickbacks as part of doing business, and there's no other way about it. If the West wants to play morally superior on this - then 100% of Airbus, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton and massive industrials will full-on go out of business. This issue is not part of the current round of negotiations with China and it's too bad, because without a level playing field - many industries will be wiped out and other countries will be happy to pick up the slack. This stuff is quite common, we need a comprehensive solution. One indirect approach might be to invest and push for open journalism in places like Malaysia, so as to force their own hand on corruption though that may be asking too much.

fennecfoxen 7y ago
I question the premise. The US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 has already made it illegal to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far.
- markdown 7y ago
  "Don't spend your money bribing foreign governments, keep that money for lobbying in your own country. Lobbying of course is not bribery."
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Because it’s not. You know that lobbyists can’t pay politicians, right? The meme that “lobbying == bribery” needs to die.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      They can set up the politicians' children and relatives with lucrative government contracts and positions on the boards of investment funds and foreign oil and gas companies, though. The meme that this is somehow OK needs to die.
    - olliej 7y ago
      If that were the case lobbying would not cost billions of dollars. Lobbying doesn’t have to be bribery, but in America it absolutely is.
      - aj7 7y ago
        The lobbyists are expensive lawyers. Their publically reported fees are the tip of an iceberg, where the bulk of valuable considerations is hidden from view.
        refurb 7y ago
        Indeed. I work with the government affairs team in my company, of which, many are lobbyists. There are no bribes happening, just very expensive people who know how to time with politicians to argue their side.
    - brennanpeterson 7y ago
      Nice dinners, catered events, golf meetings, game.tickets, 'free' staff to work on projects isn't quite bribery. A wink and a nudge showing that politicians and senior staff can have a job making millions isn't quite an offer either..no one would.be so gauche. But it sure gets close. You can also just forgive debt, or anonymously pay it off. There is no bribery, but I guess the practical difference seems pretty tiny.
    - epicgiga 7y ago
      Where there's memes there's facts. (smoke -> fire) The Clintons were "never bribed", for instance, they were just getting paid millions of dollars in "speaking fees". You don't need to swap briefcases at a park bench to do bribery. There's plenty of unspoken quid pro quo understandings that the participants are well aware of, and this is far more effective as there'll never be any smoking guns to bring them down.
      - jariel 7y ago
        With the Clintons, the big conflict of interest is the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation. It's a charity (which apparently does pretty good work) but it pays for a lot of things for the Clintons and gives them tremendous status. Hillary Clinton accepted 100's of millions into her charity from officials with whom she, as a rep. of the US was directly doing business. She was caught once, directly conferring titles to an individual who contributed to the fund, and the title had to be removed. Even though I do not generally believe that this is a form of corruption, it's a massive conflict of interest. Just like an exec how owns 90% of a company and takes office has to put said investment in a 'blind trust' - I believe the Clinton Foundation should have effectively been turned into a 'blind trust' as well. But there are 100% cases of soft pay for access going on here. Edit: to be more precise, the Clinton charity accepted money from officials of countries and other orgs that the US was dealing with, wherein Hillary was a rep of the US Gov. Not necessarily individuals she was dealing with directly. I'm not throwing flames here, just saying 'conflict of interest'.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - sn41 7y ago
      Exorbitant "speaking fees" are a questionable practice in the US. The same goes for "book deals" which are too rosy to be later borne out by sales.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Apparently FCPA might be dying a slow death... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/kudlow-white-house-is-looking-at-reforms-to-global-anti-bribery-law.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/kudlow-white-house-is-lookin...
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  In Germany it used to be that foreign bribes were tax deductible. Not sure if that’s still the case.
- jariel 7y ago
  "and many other massive industrials have survived so far." Because they are paying bribes. It's rampant, and almost out in the open. Major Western corporations keep 'sunshine funds' off the books, in offshore companies, for bribes high and low. 'Bribery' as we call it, is normative in most of the world, and it's how it works. And this is not just corrupt leaders, it's anyone in a position to benefit, from bottom to top. As I said: the issue is how the Western public is going to deal with this information coming to light because they're completely naive to what's going on.
- D_Alex 7y ago
  >Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far >Somehow At least in cases of SNC and Halliburton, "somehow" was by doing the illegal thing.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I don't think it's reasonable to assume that because some companies were prosecuted under the statute(s) that they, or industry in general, engage in just as much activity as they would have unregulated.
    - jariel 7y ago
      Yes it is. It's a very natural thing for someone who has status to think that they should be able to cash in on that power. Everyone with responsibility is looking at a pile of money every day, all they have to do is reach out and grab some. And after all, they 'work hard' so why shouldn't they? (Is the internal logic they might use). Most businesses are commodities, it's hard to compete on price or anything else. It makes much more sense to compete on some other basis. In 2020 most industries continue to run on soft grease. The next time you go to a sporting event, look at the Box Seats and consider that 100% of them are business write-offs, used to 'entertain' i.e. to 'give a gift' to someone in business they are not otherwise allowed to do. There is no such thing as a Free Lunch Some might even argue that while it might be unethical to bribe a judge, it's altogether different for commercial kickbacks. Why should an exec who has toiled all of his life leave the profits to the considerably more corrupt owners? ... is the internal logic they might use. When you think about the nature of power and influence - such activities are the natural course of action, and it takes a pretty strong, moral social organization + strong laws to overcome it. I guess it's a good thing that most regular people in the West think bribery is bad, and that at least it's not something they should do. That probably took a few hundred years of indoctrination at least.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Ok, you disagree. But after writing "Yes it is", none of your following 8 sentences seem to support your opinion. If someone is prosecuted and assumed guilty of a crime, then it proves that the law does not prevent the activity 100%. However, it also seems virtually certain that it prevents some of the crime. If someone claimed that because people are arrested for murder all the time, the law(s) against murder have no effect, is that really serious? Or is it just the sort of thing people like to say, but everyone knows better? If you make a statement and then don't support it, it creates the unfortunate appearance that you're not expressing sincere opinions, or if you are, that you won't explain where they come from.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mmhsieh 7y ago
systems of bribery operate differently in each country. i have yet to see one that does not have one.
K0SM0S 7y ago
I don't know who downvoted this but come on. jariel has a point and it's not going away because we bury our heads in the sand. At a basic level I think it falls down to fundamentally different conceptions of what is a "business" versus individuals, families, organizations of many types. What we call "lie" and "theft" in the West might be innocuous or praised in the East (think "great poker player", "bold move"), and no regulation will make each side suddenly re-order their hierarchy of values, and the centennial legal system that surely goes with it. I don't know where the solution lies, if any, but that's one hell of a cultural clash. That is not the same as more coincidental, opportunistic bribery the likes of dictatorships or local lords, the chaos tax. That's more of a temporary friction that can (and should) be dealt with more swiftly — had we the global political will to do so. It's nowhere near as hard a problem as the above cultural matter. Edit: self-censored a bad initial
KarlKemp 7y ago
Corruption has already massively improved since the heydays of the 60s and 70s, so I doubt your cynicism. But of all the industries, big planes should be among the easiest to clean up: there’s only two participants in this prisoners‘ dilemma, and they are both, theoretically, under the purview of rigorous enforcement in countries governed by law.
- jariel 7y ago
  "there’s only two participants in this prisoners‘ dilemma, and they are both, theoretically, under the purview of rigorous enforcement in countries governed by law." What? No. There are 1000's of participants, and few of them are under the purview of the law. 1. Someone wants access to a Malaysian Air exec at some hotel event. Bribe someone for info. 2. Someone is overseeing the aircraft regulatory body, their findings will sway one way or another. Bribe them. 3. Someone is drafting legislation to support the state-sponsored purchase of aircraft. Bribe them. 4. The brother of the 'deciding individual' at Malaysian Air hints he can help access. Bribe them. 5. The people responsible for lower-level contractual affairs are putting up a fuss over some little details? Bribe them. 6. The 'respected international consultancy' is putting together the business plan for the national airline strategy. Bribe them. 7. The executives making the purchase want a kickback. Bribe them. These bribes come in all forms, some of them more or less legal, or more or less ethical - depending on the law. Does giving the son of the Malay MP drafting relevant legislation a job at Airbus constitute a bribe? Or just congeniality? Does flying in a team of officials for an all-expenses-paid, swanky getaway at a high-end swiss resort for 'a meeting' constitute a bribe? In the West, a lot of this happens in fuzzier ways, borderline ethical. In other countries, it's just how business is done. In other places, like Nigeria, it's pretty straight forward. Once you get to the Nigerian Minister of Natural Resources, he will have spelled out for you by people in his periphery beforehand nature and expected size of the bribe, how it gets transmuted so that nothing 'impolite' happens directly in his presence. If you're an American IT company that has support offices in the Middle East and Africa that subcontracts the work to local companies, but then wants to end such contracts in favor of direct hires ... and said subcontractors are connected - you will 'pay a bribe' out of the sunshine fund. If you're IKEA and want to open a store in Moscow, you will pay x% of your revenue to a local 'businessman/thug'. If not - no store! So you wait a decade and realize you have no choice, and so you just pay the appropriate tributes. Again - the issue is how the plebes in the West are going to react when they start to learn how everything is working. The only way to 'end' this is to have a lot of various powers on board, and it's going to be different in every country. It might work out differently in every country, and maybe at different levels of scale, or happen in a different way, i.e. instead of 'kickbacks', execs get lucrative contracts somewhere else or some other kind of benefit. This will take a few centuries to sort out. Edit: to be clear I'm not advocating at all for any of these shenanigans.
emmelaich 7y ago
People are shooting (downvoting) the messenger (you). Not only are you describing the situation accurately, you are not advocating that the West just pay bribes as well.

by jariel 7y ago

fennecfoxen 7y ago

I question the premise. The US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 has already made it illegal to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far.

markdown 7y ago
"Don't spend your money bribing foreign governments, keep that money for lobbying in your own country. Lobbying of course is not bribery."
- kortilla 7y ago
  Because it’s not. You know that lobbyists can’t pay politicians, right? The meme that “lobbying == bribery” needs to die.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    They can set up the politicians' children and relatives with lucrative government contracts and positions on the boards of investment funds and foreign oil and gas companies, though. The meme that this is somehow OK needs to die.
  - olliej 7y ago
    If that were the case lobbying would not cost billions of dollars. Lobbying doesn’t have to be bribery, but in America it absolutely is.
    - aj7 7y ago
      The lobbyists are expensive lawyers. Their publically reported fees are the tip of an iceberg, where the bulk of valuable considerations is hidden from view.
      - refurb 7y ago
        Indeed. I work with the government affairs team in my company, of which, many are lobbyists. There are no bribes happening, just very expensive people who know how to time with politicians to argue their side.
  - brennanpeterson 7y ago
    Nice dinners, catered events, golf meetings, game.tickets, 'free' staff to work on projects isn't quite bribery. A wink and a nudge showing that politicians and senior staff can have a job making millions isn't quite an offer either..no one would.be so gauche. But it sure gets close. You can also just forgive debt, or anonymously pay it off. There is no bribery, but I guess the practical difference seems pretty tiny.
  - epicgiga 7y ago
    Where there's memes there's facts. (smoke -> fire) The Clintons were "never bribed", for instance, they were just getting paid millions of dollars in "speaking fees". You don't need to swap briefcases at a park bench to do bribery. There's plenty of unspoken quid pro quo understandings that the participants are well aware of, and this is far more effective as there'll never be any smoking guns to bring them down.
    - jariel 7y ago
      With the Clintons, the big conflict of interest is the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation. It's a charity (which apparently does pretty good work) but it pays for a lot of things for the Clintons and gives them tremendous status. Hillary Clinton accepted 100's of millions into her charity from officials with whom she, as a rep. of the US was directly doing business. She was caught once, directly conferring titles to an individual who contributed to the fund, and the title had to be removed. Even though I do not generally believe that this is a form of corruption, it's a massive conflict of interest. Just like an exec how owns 90% of a company and takes office has to put said investment in a 'blind trust' - I believe the Clinton Foundation should have effectively been turned into a 'blind trust' as well. But there are 100% cases of soft pay for access going on here. Edit: to be more precise, the Clinton charity accepted money from officials of countries and other orgs that the US was dealing with, wherein Hillary was a rep of the US Gov. Not necessarily individuals she was dealing with directly. I'm not throwing flames here, just saying 'conflict of interest'.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sn41 7y ago
    Exorbitant "speaking fees" are a questionable practice in the US. The same goes for "book deals" which are too rosy to be later borne out by sales.
mehrdadn 7y ago
Apparently FCPA might be dying a slow death... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/kudlow-white-house-is-looking-at-reforms-to-global-anti-bribery-law.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/kudlow-white-house-is-lookin...
Ididntdothis 7y ago
In Germany it used to be that foreign bribes were tax deductible. Not sure if that’s still the case.
jariel 7y ago
"and many other massive industrials have survived so far." Because they are paying bribes. It's rampant, and almost out in the open. Major Western corporations keep 'sunshine funds' off the books, in offshore companies, for bribes high and low. 'Bribery' as we call it, is normative in most of the world, and it's how it works. And this is not just corrupt leaders, it's anyone in a position to benefit, from bottom to top. As I said: the issue is how the Western public is going to deal with this information coming to light because they're completely naive to what's going on.
D_Alex 7y ago
>Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far >Somehow At least in cases of SNC and Halliburton, "somehow" was by doing the illegal thing.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I don't think it's reasonable to assume that because some companies were prosecuted under the statute(s) that they, or industry in general, engage in just as much activity as they would have unregulated.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Yes it is. It's a very natural thing for someone who has status to think that they should be able to cash in on that power. Everyone with responsibility is looking at a pile of money every day, all they have to do is reach out and grab some. And after all, they 'work hard' so why shouldn't they? (Is the internal logic they might use). Most businesses are commodities, it's hard to compete on price or anything else. It makes much more sense to compete on some other basis. In 2020 most industries continue to run on soft grease. The next time you go to a sporting event, look at the Box Seats and consider that 100% of them are business write-offs, used to 'entertain' i.e. to 'give a gift' to someone in business they are not otherwise allowed to do. There is no such thing as a Free Lunch Some might even argue that while it might be unethical to bribe a judge, it's altogether different for commercial kickbacks. Why should an exec who has toiled all of his life leave the profits to the considerably more corrupt owners? ... is the internal logic they might use. When you think about the nature of power and influence - such activities are the natural course of action, and it takes a pretty strong, moral social organization + strong laws to overcome it. I guess it's a good thing that most regular people in the West think bribery is bad, and that at least it's not something they should do. That probably took a few hundred years of indoctrination at least.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Ok, you disagree. But after writing "Yes it is", none of your following 8 sentences seem to support your opinion. If someone is prosecuted and assumed guilty of a crime, then it proves that the law does not prevent the activity 100%. However, it also seems virtually certain that it prevents some of the crime. If someone claimed that because people are arrested for murder all the time, the law(s) against murder have no effect, is that really serious? Or is it just the sort of thing people like to say, but everyone knows better? If you make a statement and then don't support it, it creates the unfortunate appearance that you're not expressing sincere opinions, or if you are, that you won't explain where they come from.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mmhsieh 7y ago

systems of bribery operate differently in each country. i have yet to see one that does not have one.

K0SM0S 7y ago

I don't know who downvoted this but come on. jariel has a point and it's not going away because we bury our heads in the sand. At a basic level I think it falls down to fundamentally different conceptions of what is a "business" versus individuals, families, organizations of many types. What we call "lie" and "theft" in the West might be innocuous or praised in the East (think "great poker player", "bold move"), and no regulation will make each side suddenly re-order their hierarchy of values, and the centennial legal system that surely goes with it. I don't know where the solution lies, if any, but that's one hell of a cultural clash. That is not the same as more coincidental, opportunistic bribery the likes of dictatorships or local lords, the chaos tax. That's more of a temporary friction that can (and should) be dealt with more swiftly — had we the global political will to do so. It's nowhere near as hard a problem as the above cultural matter. Edit: self-censored a bad initial

KarlKemp 7y ago

Corruption has already massively improved since the heydays of the 60s and 70s, so I doubt your cynicism. But of all the industries, big planes should be among the easiest to clean up: there’s only two participants in this prisoners‘ dilemma, and they are both, theoretically, under the purview of rigorous enforcement in countries governed by law.

jariel 7y ago
"there’s only two participants in this prisoners‘ dilemma, and they are both, theoretically, under the purview of rigorous enforcement in countries governed by law." What? No. There are 1000's of participants, and few of them are under the purview of the law. 1. Someone wants access to a Malaysian Air exec at some hotel event. Bribe someone for info. 2. Someone is overseeing the aircraft regulatory body, their findings will sway one way or another. Bribe them. 3. Someone is drafting legislation to support the state-sponsored purchase of aircraft. Bribe them. 4. The brother of the 'deciding individual' at Malaysian Air hints he can help access. Bribe them. 5. The people responsible for lower-level contractual affairs are putting up a fuss over some little details? Bribe them. 6. The 'respected international consultancy' is putting together the business plan for the national airline strategy. Bribe them. 7. The executives making the purchase want a kickback. Bribe them. These bribes come in all forms, some of them more or less legal, or more or less ethical - depending on the law. Does giving the son of the Malay MP drafting relevant legislation a job at Airbus constitute a bribe? Or just congeniality? Does flying in a team of officials for an all-expenses-paid, swanky getaway at a high-end swiss resort for 'a meeting' constitute a bribe? In the West, a lot of this happens in fuzzier ways, borderline ethical. In other countries, it's just how business is done. In other places, like Nigeria, it's pretty straight forward. Once you get to the Nigerian Minister of Natural Resources, he will have spelled out for you by people in his periphery beforehand nature and expected size of the bribe, how it gets transmuted so that nothing 'impolite' happens directly in his presence. If you're an American IT company that has support offices in the Middle East and Africa that subcontracts the work to local companies, but then wants to end such contracts in favor of direct hires ... and said subcontractors are connected - you will 'pay a bribe' out of the sunshine fund. If you're IKEA and want to open a store in Moscow, you will pay x% of your revenue to a local 'businessman/thug'. If not - no store! So you wait a decade and realize you have no choice, and so you just pay the appropriate tributes. Again - the issue is how the plebes in the West are going to react when they start to learn how everything is working. The only way to 'end' this is to have a lot of various powers on board, and it's going to be different in every country. It might work out differently in every country, and maybe at different levels of scale, or happen in a different way, i.e. instead of 'kickbacks', execs get lucrative contracts somewhere else or some other kind of benefit. This will take a few centuries to sort out. Edit: to be clear I'm not advocating at all for any of these shenanigans.

emmelaich 7y ago

People are shooting (downvoting) the messenger (you). Not only are you describing the situation accurately, you are not advocating that the West just pay bribes as well.