4 ms·

You'll need to draw that line a little clearer, because it's not starkly clear to me. I'm aware of the definition of bribery. I don't think anything mentioned h

by madrox 5y ago

You'll need to draw that line a little clearer, because it's not starkly clear to me. I'm aware of the definition of bribery. I don't think anything mentioned here describes graft as much as it describes the reseller business unless there is some law that limits the amount of money a reseller makes on a deal, or that a purchaser is required to use all of said purchase. In the Saudi example, the contractor got a great deal, but that's hardly illegal. In the Qatar example, buying more seats than you use is a common problem and any company that sells based on seats is guilty of this on some level. For me to take this farther than "that's how reselling works," there'd need to be some signs that Microsoft employees or government officials were seeing kickbacks from these inefficient deals...basically, the resellers were the ones doing the bribing. The whistleblower seems to be insinuating that's happening, and maybe it is, but there's no hard evidence of it here or that it's something systemic that Microsoft is promoting (indeed, Microsoft would be one of the victims in that case). Without more detail on what exactly Microsoft was extracting out of these circumstances I find the whole thing vague.

tialaramex 5y ago
> Without more detail on what exactly Microsoft was extracting out of these circumstances I find the whole thing vague. I think the big problem here is that you've misunderstood why bribery is a criminal matter. The fact you're talking about Microsoft being "one of the victims in that case" is another sign you do not get it. Corruption itself is the problem, we're not trying to ensure Microsoft gets their $$$. To root out corruption, the relatively less corrupt major industrialised nations agreed rules forbidding their business entities from having anything to do with such practices even via a third party. When Microsoft realises that their guy in Saudi is involved in something dodgy, their duty isn't "hide it so the big bosses don't know" or even "pay the guy off and find somebody else" but to report this corruption to the government. These are leaches, they have to be starved, and that won't be effective so long as, like in this story, there are nods and winks and everybody pretends it's fine so long as they got paid.
- madrox 5y ago
  If that is happening, then you're absolutely correct. However, there's no evidence that's happening...either in the Verge article or in the whistleblower's own words. All the whistleblower has presented is Microsoft's own PWC audits that resellers have been pocketing more money than policy says they should and that there are cases where company policy was violated. The leap from this evidence to bribery is, frankly, pandering to the reader's prior beliefs. If you're saying the resellers themselves are corrupt to make a score in, say, the Saudi case, well, that's the reseller business and it's all a question of degree. There is no law that if a reseller negotiates a better rate from the vendor that they're required to pass those savings on. It's skeevy and a reason the reseller business should disappear, but it's not any different from a car salesman.
  - xemdetia 5y ago
    I'm in this camp here. The article does a poor job framing the actual involvement Microsoft had and the whistleblower's writeup doesn't do a good job either. They did provide instances in the original whistleblowing that bad things did happen.. but they also showed that a lot of them actually got some sort of punishment/reaction instead of just pretending situation normal. A buyer, a reseller, and a seller working together to find a price that works by lowering the cost of goods is not a bribe since you know nobody is getting paid. They seemed to be heavily extrapolating that the buyer, reseller, and the Microsoft rep are splitting the proceeds of the cost mismatch regularly outside of normal revenues for the reseller and Microsoft. There needed to be a lot more sensible storytelling from the whistleblower pointing a finger and blowing the whistle at specific people who were doing the accused tactic. There's a lot more extrapolation of facts into a narrative from the original whistleblower post. Trying to say that licenses that were bought that never were used was bribery is just confusing. Even I have licenses for things kicking around that I never installed but intended to someday. Whole projects can get planned, licenses purchased, and then for one reason or another scrapped but the licenses (or other material from vendors) are still 'bought.' For the bribery to mean anything (or like that other commenter who tried to whip out FCPA randomly) someone has to get enriched by the experience other than the reseller selling something and paying Microsoft its share. The whistleblower post didn't do that well. There is just not a lot of good information that was provided by the whistleblower to actually connect all of this money that he estimates at $200 million to any sort of reality. Do I think he has enough beef for a employment law retaliation case (if he was in jurisdiction US law)? Probably. Did some people commit bribes and Microsoft was fined/Microsoft fired people? Probably. Do some resellers who are external to Microsoft end up violating the FCPA or 'normal US business ethics' in some regions? Definitely. But they aren't in the US, so the right venue for whistleblowing the activity is in whatever-country-in-question under their laws. Just based on the article and whistleblower post it sounds like there is just an assumption that micro problems in his local leadership were macro problems. I am not convinced.

by madrox 5y ago

tialaramex 5y ago

> Without more detail on what exactly Microsoft was extracting out of these circumstances I find the whole thing vague. I think the big problem here is that you've misunderstood why bribery is a criminal matter. The fact you're talking about Microsoft being "one of the victims in that case" is another sign you do not get it. Corruption itself is the problem, we're not trying to ensure Microsoft gets their $$$. To root out corruption, the relatively less corrupt major industrialised nations agreed rules forbidding their business entities from having anything to do with such practices even via a third party. When Microsoft realises that their guy in Saudi is involved in something dodgy, their duty isn't "hide it so the big bosses don't know" or even "pay the guy off and find somebody else" but to report this corruption to the government. These are leaches, they have to be starved, and that won't be effective so long as, like in this story, there are nods and winks and everybody pretends it's fine so long as they got paid.

madrox 5y ago
If that is happening, then you're absolutely correct. However, there's no evidence that's happening...either in the Verge article or in the whistleblower's own words. All the whistleblower has presented is Microsoft's own PWC audits that resellers have been pocketing more money than policy says they should and that there are cases where company policy was violated. The leap from this evidence to bribery is, frankly, pandering to the reader's prior beliefs. If you're saying the resellers themselves are corrupt to make a score in, say, the Saudi case, well, that's the reseller business and it's all a question of degree. There is no law that if a reseller negotiates a better rate from the vendor that they're required to pass those savings on. It's skeevy and a reason the reseller business should disappear, but it's not any different from a car salesman.
- xemdetia 5y ago
  I'm in this camp here. The article does a poor job framing the actual involvement Microsoft had and the whistleblower's writeup doesn't do a good job either. They did provide instances in the original whistleblowing that bad things did happen.. but they also showed that a lot of them actually got some sort of punishment/reaction instead of just pretending situation normal. A buyer, a reseller, and a seller working together to find a price that works by lowering the cost of goods is not a bribe since you know nobody is getting paid. They seemed to be heavily extrapolating that the buyer, reseller, and the Microsoft rep are splitting the proceeds of the cost mismatch regularly outside of normal revenues for the reseller and Microsoft. There needed to be a lot more sensible storytelling from the whistleblower pointing a finger and blowing the whistle at specific people who were doing the accused tactic. There's a lot more extrapolation of facts into a narrative from the original whistleblower post. Trying to say that licenses that were bought that never were used was bribery is just confusing. Even I have licenses for things kicking around that I never installed but intended to someday. Whole projects can get planned, licenses purchased, and then for one reason or another scrapped but the licenses (or other material from vendors) are still 'bought.' For the bribery to mean anything (or like that other commenter who tried to whip out FCPA randomly) someone has to get enriched by the experience other than the reseller selling something and paying Microsoft its share. The whistleblower post didn't do that well. There is just not a lot of good information that was provided by the whistleblower to actually connect all of this money that he estimates at $200 million to any sort of reality. Do I think he has enough beef for a employment law retaliation case (if he was in jurisdiction US law)? Probably. Did some people commit bribes and Microsoft was fined/Microsoft fired people? Probably. Do some resellers who are external to Microsoft end up violating the FCPA or 'normal US business ethics' in some regions? Definitely. But they aren't in the US, so the right venue for whistleblowing the activity is in whatever-country-in-question under their laws. Just based on the article and whistleblower post it sounds like there is just an assumption that micro problems in his local leadership were macro problems. I am not convinced.