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Officially, the crime is fraud and the victim is Netflix, Inc. He defrauded the other employees and the corporate shareholders. He also laundered the money, whi

Officially, the crime is fraud and the victim is Netflix, Inc. He defrauded the other employees and the corporate shareholders. He also laundered the money, which is also illegal and why the IRS got involved. Kickbacks aren't the fundamental issue here. If this was a single-employee startup with no other investors or shareholders, this would be perfectly legal. Or if Netflix, Inc. had a policy that authorized individual executives to personally receive cash and stock from vendors as perks, then this would have been perfectly legal. However, as the article says, Netflix had an internal policy that he blatantly violated: > Netflix policies prohibited conflicts of interest by its employees by its Code of Ethics and its “Culture Deck,” which required the disclosure of actual or apparent conflicts of interest and the reporting of gifts from entities seeking to sell products or services to the company.

0x0nyandesu 5y ago
As a Netflix share holder I'm gonna say that this is a cost of doing business in Hollywood. Nothing this exec did is actually a problem. Half these people are at each other's houses ever day fucking each other's wives at swinger parties.
- humanistbot 5y ago
  > this is a cost of doing business in Hollywood. First off, these were tech vendors giving kickbacks to the CIO, not producers bribing studio execs to get someone specific cast. But you seem to be missing that kickbacks aren't illegal in and of themselves. Netflix corporate didn't have to institute an anti-kickback policy for its employees. But they did, likely because they didn't want an environment where execs are negotiating both for the company and for themselves. The moment an executive violates corporate policy to enrich themselves, it becomes fraud.