12 ms·

Microsoft is using illegal bribes in the Middle East and Africa

236 points by hosteur 4y ago

nikanj 4y ago
Not to defend Microsoft, but isn’t everyone?
- midasuni 4y ago
  No. And corrects it’s very difficult to avoid it. And often more expensive. And sometimes you have to simply not do business instead of paying the bribe.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
> $COMPANYNAME is using illegal bribes in the Middle East and Africa /thread. > A former colleague based in Saudi Arabia who had become upset by what he saw taking place at Microsoft began forwarding me emails and documentation—and I learned that the corruption went much deeper than I had suspected. Great, the guy just confessed receiving the internal documents from a company sent by an accomplice. > This decision maker on the customer side would send an email to Microsoft requesting a discount, which would be granted, but the end customer would pay the full fee anyway. The amount of the discount would then be distributed among the parties in cahoots: the Microsoft employee(s) involved in the scheme, the partner, and the decision maker at the purchasing entity—often a government official. Yep, the most straightforward and easy way to get some additional money. > In a 2015 meeting with members of the Nigerian Parliament, the president of the Senate complained to me that the government had paid $5.5 million for Microsoft licenses for hardware they did not possess. This should never have happened, because Microsoft’s standard practice was to meet with the National Assembly’s IT department and financial controller to check the number of computers needing licenses before submitting any proposal. This is not MS' problem, it's the problem of some corrupt paper-pusher who managed to convince all parties what there was a need to spend $5.5M. > Likewise, auditors discovered that Qatar’s Ministry of Education was paying $9.5 million annually over seven years for Microsoft Office and Windows licenses they weren’t using—as they didn’t even have any PCs or laptop computers Again, this is not MS' problem. To sum up: the guy lived in the bubble for 20 years and suddenly he understood.
- chillydawg 4y ago
  I hope never to come across you in real life or do business with you. Your response to reported illegal activity is to laugh at the reporter? Do better.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is how the things are done in the real life. > is to laugh at the reporter Sorry, but while I didn't laugh at the reporter I can't believe someone worked for 15 years in ME/A and didn't notice the corruption and bribes. > do business with you Thanks, I dont' want to do business with someone who didn't understand the comment yet responds with "Do better". And because you need a clarification: no, I don't defend the corruption described in TFA, I just merely point out what the problem lies not in MS itself but in the modus operandi of many, many people with access to government funds.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      >Thanks, I dont' want to do business with someone who didn't understand the comment yet responds with "Do better". You're a saint, and I mean that sincerely. Anyone more down to earth would be ecstatic to conduct business with a self-professed naive individual, because the art of business is ripping someone off without pissing them off.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- NinjaKitten 4y ago
  ^^ This guy bribes.
  - vetinari 4y ago
    Not necessarily, might be just an observer. You would be shocked, but it is very similar in EU countries too.
- 4y ago
walrus01 4y ago
If you think this is shocking, wait until you dig into the history of US and UK weapons sales (and ongoing highly paid contractor support) to the Saudi military and "police" forces. Software licensing bribery and kickbacks are peanuts and crumbs on the floor by comparison. A great deal of it is justified under the concept that because they're definitely not on good terms with the mullahs in Qom, anyone opposed to the Iranian ayatollahs as a regional power must be our friend, right?
- LudwigNagasena 4y ago
  If you think this is shocking, wait until you dig into the history of the EU countries selling arms and anti-protest gear to Russia despite the embargo that was put in place in 2014.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    Can you provide some specifics?
    - LudwigNagasena 4y ago
      https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-closes-loophole-allowing-multimillion-euro-arms-sales-russia-2022-04-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-closes-loophole-allo...
- GuardianCaveman 4y ago
  I worked on a program for a foreign military sale to a Middle East country and learned a lot like every foreign company had to pay someone to get ahead at all. It’s crazy to me this is news. It’s literally impossible to do business there without bribes. The USAF didn’t knoww and we had to work hard to hide the money used for that purpose. We lost part of a lucrative contract because of a rival defense company bribing a different prince.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > the history You dont need to go beyond yesterday for history. The foreign aid budget for example is litteral bribery with a less icky name.
mtgx 4y ago
[dead]
seydor 4y ago
As opposed to legal bribes?
- elashri 4y ago
  Usually these countries doesn't have lobby groups in the same sense. That's why it is illegal bribes.
- dataflow 4y ago
  I think they mean the (sub)set of foreign bribes that are illegal for US entities.
  - rob74 4y ago
    All bribes are illegal for US entities. If they were legal, they would call it something else...
    - VulgarExigency 4y ago
      Yes, lobbying.
    - eru 4y ago
      Bribing foreigners used to be legal for US entities.
    - tdeck 4y ago
      Apparently the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes an exception for so-called "grease payments", which are bribes (i.e. technically illegal in the foreign country) that are intended just to get someone to do their expected job.
- cabirum 4y ago
  "grease payments"
- janmarsal 4y ago
  Yes, they use legal bribes in the US and Europe.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Yes, they do. They all do. You need a rule of law, to tame corruption and no non-democracy has that. The attempt to deploy western culture globally has failed miserably, generating jobs who exist merley to errect a veneer of compliance. Behind the thin layer of paint, the old culture and world continus happily on unphased by the hysterics. And it was always painfully obvious for those in the know. For example there was a law in many arab countries, that you could not do buisness with israel and do buisness with them. Yet, when you opened company location maps, there they were, side by side, right next to the company "morals & mission statements" tab. The obvious answer, bribes in broad daylight. Now, as the western exported "cultural revolution" winds down in obvious failure, all that veneer fades away and the ugly old world reappears as if it was never gone. Very soon, the workers with confiscated passports might as well be called slaves again. Its a sad, depressing state of affairs, but then it was for the non deluded befor this point in time too.
- fryry 4y ago
  On the last point, I must be missing something obvious, but why don't those workers who have their passports taken report them lost/stolen and get a new one from their embassy?
  - walrus01 4y ago
    Because their job is tied to company owned by the citizen of the host country who employs them (their visa sponsor), and they're probably sending money back home to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh to support a family of eight people. You report that and cause a legal fuss with your employers, you not only don't get paid your previous month of work, you get deported and banned from the UAE or Qatar or Saudi Arabia for life.
    - EduardoBautista 4y ago
      It is illegal to confiscate an employee's passport in the UAE. If it happens, it doesn't make it legal.
sourcecodeplz 4y ago
> illegal bribes Are there also legal bribes?
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  Yes, legal bribes are how most of the Anglo-Saxon world works. For example, if I want certain favours from the current UK government, I can give a friend of mine an interest-free loan for him to donate significant sums of money to the current ruling party (Tories). You get away with this as long as there is no written record and just a discussion on the golf club. Not surprisingly, the government may then award you lucrative contracts or change the law in subtle ways that are in your favour. Of course, the friend in question will then get endorsed for a lucrative position, a cushy consultancy job or a non-executive board membership.
  - smcl 4y ago
    I think that would still be illegal but just very hard to prove and prosecute.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - oxfordmale 4y ago
      Illegal means it is beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a violation of the law. People do not get thrown in jail for donating money to political parties. Suggesting ideas to political parties is also not illegal. It is only illegal if the money is donated for the sole purpose of influencing a particular decision.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - rob74 4y ago
    Those aren't legal either, unless you go by the motto "you are only guilty if you get caught"...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
it_citizen 4y ago
I wonder if the department of justice is going to launch the same enthusiastic corruption investigations they used to massively fine foreign competitors of American companies. \s
pjmlp 4y ago
I bet everyone had a stellar score on the code of condut and company values trainings. Hence why they are worthless beyond getting a checkmark on the yearly corporate trainings.
yakubin 4y ago
Honest question: what’s the difference between a bribe and a legal fee? E.g. when you apply for a UK visa, you need to pay over 1k GBP as an “application fee”. Why is this application fee not considered a bribe?
- SiempreViernes 4y ago
  When you buy groceries from the store, do you also consider that bribing the clerk? Of not, can you explain what you see as the difference?
  - yakubin 4y ago
    The difference is I pay for what I get. With the visa application fee, there’s nothing that can be worth £1k there. Note that I didn’t include fees for healthcare and taxes in that figure. It’s just a nonsense fee on top for nothing.
    - SiempreViernes 4y ago
      So you didn't pay the application fee because access to the UK wasn't worth it?
      - yakubin 4y ago
        It is worth it. But it isn’t a compensation for any work done by the government you pay it to. The value was created by people who didn’t receive anything from that money. The government is just the intermediary taking fees for access to it. If bribes weren’t worth paying, they wouldn’t be a thing.
        SiempreViernes 4y ago
        Sorry, you paid to get access and you got access? So it what exactly was the difference against the grocery store? You know they don't actually make the milk in the store, right?
aww_dang 4y ago
Illegal overseas bribes are distinct from Microsoft's domestic legal lobbying activities. When I worked as a bicycle courier in DC I recall picking up from Microsoft, 1401 I st. NW. No software was developed at this office. It was just highly paid lawyers and lobbyists. Consider how productive that is in real terms, and remember those costs are passed onto you as a consumer. The delivery was 9 Titleist golf balls in a box, each ball inside of an individual box. There was also a greeting card. The entire delivery was packaged inside of a bubble wrapped envelope. The congressperson wasn't interested in sending an aide outside to collect the package even after the contents were explained. The check inside of the greeting card for 10,000 USD was not enticing enough for them to come outside. In these scenarios, packages were sent to the "security trailer", which was no longer a trailer, but a concrete block structure nearby on Capitol Hill. Inside of the trailer, I was instructed to individually double bag each golf ball, with a barcode on the inner bag. A security person or Capitol Hill policeman pedantically ordered each step of the process from a drive-thru quality intercom system. For his safety, he stayed behind the bulletproof glass with a positive air pressure differential. He still had to sign my manifest to accept the delivery. It was like standing in front of a laboratory flow hood as I passed my clipboard into the robotic drawer. After bagging, I was instructed to individually x-ray each item. Next, the entire package was double bagged again with yet another barcode. Finally, I handed off the package through the airlock. About 15 minutes total. Could have been longer, but he already had my data entered into the computer system. I was a regular visitor. The entire procedure is absurd. The distinction of illegal bribes in the title speaks to this. Say what you will about the necessity of the state, but whether legal or illegally practiced, government gatekeepers are a net drain on the economy. If you cannot appreciate the productivity losses in abstract terms, consider how inefficient the processes are to simply deliver a check for ten-thousand dollars to a congressperson.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  I don't really understand what connection the security around packages has to do with the whole lobbying thing. It's hardly surprising they'd have some elaborate procedures around that when random people try to deliver pipe bombs or anthrax spores to Congresspeople every few years.
uwagar 4y ago
bribes are illegal. what is an illegal bribe? and what is this word using? say it like it is. microsoft is bribing.
- davidguetta 4y ago
  Lobbying is legal bribing
StevigeHoning 4y ago
Can one do business in the Middle East & Africa without bribing?
freetanga 4y ago
In other news, water is wet.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
OMG The article provides two internals audit reports, which are PDFs with blacked out names: > Exceed IT Services [0] > Diyar United Company [1] Yes, this is just the black bars on top the info. Not only author explicitly confirmed receiving teh internal MS documents but he didn't do a proper cleanup of the documents he provides to whole world. This guy, along with his accomplice in MS, is in deep, deep trouble if anyone bothers to come for them. [0] https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ugd/58a44b_456f670b335a4bf3806fb2a958e98e40.pdf https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ug... [1] https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ugd/58a44b_2108511f3b3e454eaffd0bac993d2861.pdf https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ug...
- layer8 4y ago
  You can also read the “end customer names” and “reseller names” (or rather, copy and paste them).
lhnz 4y ago
This is actually particularly bad. They followed company policy and pointed out the compliance issues but Microsoft did not reprimand the employee involved and instead promoted them into a position that they could more easily evade accountability and also punish the person that had drawn attention to compliance issues. It gets worse as they are put on a performance improvement plan (PIP), even though they have 18 years of experience and presumably had no significant performance issues up until this point. If the information about corruption within the post is true, Microsoft undoubtedly deserve to pay a significant fine, but unfortunately: > What is a shock: This time around, the SEC and DOJ > have both declined to investigate Microsoft over > the same types of bribes in the Middle East and > Africa. They acknowledged my evidence (which I > submitted three times) yet did not take up the > case, claiming that the current pandemic has > prevented them from gathering more evidence from > abroad—even though I have already provided > documentation that I believe shows Microsoft is in > breach of the 2019 agreement and is still > participating in corrupt business practices in > direct violation of U.S. law. I think that by not punishing this the SEC and DOJ are sending a signal to whistleblowers in large corporations that they do not take compliance seriously and that they will not protect employees that try to draw attention to wrongdoing. At the very least it suggests to me that when whistleblowing, you must avoid alerting anybody in your organisation that you disagree with what you see, and do everything through external parties instead of internal policies.
- Haga 4y ago
  [dead]
Ligma123 4y ago
Only europeans people with no contact with non-europeans believe the rest of the world works the same way as we do. If you want to do anything in those regions, bribes should be part of your budget, all the way down. Even the workers that need to travel to those places should have a budget for those bribes, as in some places even the police will try to get you in trouble if you don't give them money, or in some African countries, even food is accepted.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- popcalc 4y ago
  >europeans people with no contact with non-europeans I think you mean 5-10 countries in Western, Northern Europe right? Most of Europe is rife with corruption on every level and always has been.
- layer8 4y ago
  How do you explain that the author apparently had no trouble closing large contracts without bribing?
  - cutemonster 4y ago
    Seems there was lots of bribery going on all the time, he just didn't know about it, didn't take part in it himself: > many employees younger than me, in lower positions, were driving luxury cars and purchasing homes and it took until this event, for him to start connecting the dots: > the partner in the deal [...] had been terminated four months earlier for poor performance on the sales team, and corporate policy prohibits former employees from working as partners
    - layer8 4y ago
      I didn’t get the impression that there was any bribery going on in the deals he closed himself. Even if he only became aware of that after the fact, he’d have mentioned that more explicitly. Instead, he argues that he was fired despite very good performance, and it would be hypocritical if that performance was only made possible by bribes. So I don’t think this adds up.
mkoubaa 4y ago
Microsoft's mission to empower people anywhere in the world to do more apparently means transferring wealth to thugs in developing countries without actually delivering technology.
petro74 4y ago
I live in Africa. Nairobi, Kenya to be precise. One obvious problem I have seen is the procurement laws and procedures. Especially in government and public companies. For example, you need to go through a tender process to procure basic stuff like licenses for software. So a separate company (not Microsoft) submits a tender to "supply" another company for licenses to use Microsoft products. This opens up a clear avenue for corruption. And it is heavily exploited. These companies basically submit tenders for the these licenses at exorbitantly inflated prices while doing absolutely nothing. There is nothing preventing these public companies and government agencies for purchasing directly from Microsoft except for the procurement rules and procedures. So we end up in a situation where folks that are awarded these tenders end up pocketing large amounts for "supplying Microsoft software". Local Microsoft employees are obviously colluding with them. Reviewing these procurement rules and laws may have some impact in reducing these obvious form of corruption.
dagorenouf 4y ago
just to be clear, can a bribe ever be legal?
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Bribery seems to be a thing that happens everywhere, cough..clarence thomas..cough...

236 points by hosteur 4y ago

nikanj 4y ago

Not to defend Microsoft, but isn’t everyone?

midasuni 4y ago
No. And corrects it’s very difficult to avoid it. And often more expensive. And sometimes you have to simply not do business instead of paying the bribe.

justsomehnguy 4y ago

> $COMPANYNAME is using illegal bribes in the Middle East and Africa /thread. > A former colleague based in Saudi Arabia who had become upset by what he saw taking place at Microsoft began forwarding me emails and documentation—and I learned that the corruption went much deeper than I had suspected. Great, the guy just confessed receiving the internal documents from a company sent by an accomplice. > This decision maker on the customer side would send an email to Microsoft requesting a discount, which would be granted, but the end customer would pay the full fee anyway. The amount of the discount would then be distributed among the parties in cahoots: the Microsoft employee(s) involved in the scheme, the partner, and the decision maker at the purchasing entity—often a government official. Yep, the most straightforward and easy way to get some additional money. > In a 2015 meeting with members of the Nigerian Parliament, the president of the Senate complained to me that the government had paid $5.5 million for Microsoft licenses for hardware they did not possess. This should never have happened, because Microsoft’s standard practice was to meet with the National Assembly’s IT department and financial controller to check the number of computers needing licenses before submitting any proposal. This is not MS' problem, it's the problem of some corrupt paper-pusher who managed to convince all parties what there was a need to spend $5.5M. > Likewise, auditors discovered that Qatar’s Ministry of Education was paying $9.5 million annually over seven years for Microsoft Office and Windows licenses they weren’t using—as they didn’t even have any PCs or laptop computers Again, this is not MS' problem. To sum up: the guy lived in the bubble for 20 years and suddenly he understood.

chillydawg 4y ago
I hope never to come across you in real life or do business with you. Your response to reported illegal activity is to laugh at the reporter? Do better.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is how the things are done in the real life. > is to laugh at the reporter Sorry, but while I didn't laugh at the reporter I can't believe someone worked for 15 years in ME/A and didn't notice the corruption and bribes. > do business with you Thanks, I dont' want to do business with someone who didn't understand the comment yet responds with "Do better". And because you need a clarification: no, I don't defend the corruption described in TFA, I just merely point out what the problem lies not in MS itself but in the modus operandi of many, many people with access to government funds.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >Thanks, I dont' want to do business with someone who didn't understand the comment yet responds with "Do better". You're a saint, and I mean that sincerely. Anyone more down to earth would be ecstatic to conduct business with a self-professed naive individual, because the art of business is ripping someone off without pissing them off.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
NinjaKitten 4y ago
^^ This guy bribes.
- vetinari 4y ago
  Not necessarily, might be just an observer. You would be shocked, but it is very similar in EU countries too.
4y ago

walrus01 4y ago

If you think this is shocking, wait until you dig into the history of US and UK weapons sales (and ongoing highly paid contractor support) to the Saudi military and "police" forces. Software licensing bribery and kickbacks are peanuts and crumbs on the floor by comparison. A great deal of it is justified under the concept that because they're definitely not on good terms with the mullahs in Qom, anyone opposed to the Iranian ayatollahs as a regional power must be our friend, right?

LudwigNagasena 4y ago
If you think this is shocking, wait until you dig into the history of the EU countries selling arms and anti-protest gear to Russia despite the embargo that was put in place in 2014.
- walrus01 4y ago
  Can you provide some specifics?
  - LudwigNagasena 4y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-closes-loophole-allowing-multimillion-euro-arms-sales-russia-2022-04-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-closes-loophole-allo...
GuardianCaveman 4y ago
I worked on a program for a foreign military sale to a Middle East country and learned a lot like every foreign company had to pay someone to get ahead at all. It’s crazy to me this is news. It’s literally impossible to do business there without bribes. The USAF didn’t knoww and we had to work hard to hide the money used for that purpose. We lost part of a lucrative contract because of a rival defense company bribing a different prince.
shapefrog 4y ago
> the history You dont need to go beyond yesterday for history. The foreign aid budget for example is litteral bribery with a less icky name.

mtgx 4y ago

[dead]

seydor 4y ago

As opposed to legal bribes?

elashri 4y ago
Usually these countries doesn't have lobby groups in the same sense. That's why it is illegal bribes.
dataflow 4y ago
I think they mean the (sub)set of foreign bribes that are illegal for US entities.
- rob74 4y ago
  All bribes are illegal for US entities. If they were legal, they would call it something else...
  - VulgarExigency 4y ago
    Yes, lobbying.
  - eru 4y ago
    Bribing foreigners used to be legal for US entities.
  - tdeck 4y ago
    Apparently the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes an exception for so-called "grease payments", which are bribes (i.e. technically illegal in the foreign country) that are intended just to get someone to do their expected job.
cabirum 4y ago
"grease payments"
janmarsal 4y ago
Yes, they use legal bribes in the US and Europe.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Yes, they do. They all do. You need a rule of law, to tame corruption and no non-democracy has that. The attempt to deploy western culture globally has failed miserably, generating jobs who exist merley to errect a veneer of compliance. Behind the thin layer of paint, the old culture and world continus happily on unphased by the hysterics. And it was always painfully obvious for those in the know. For example there was a law in many arab countries, that you could not do buisness with israel and do buisness with them. Yet, when you opened company location maps, there they were, side by side, right next to the company "morals & mission statements" tab. The obvious answer, bribes in broad daylight. Now, as the western exported "cultural revolution" winds down in obvious failure, all that veneer fades away and the ugly old world reappears as if it was never gone. Very soon, the workers with confiscated passports might as well be called slaves again. Its a sad, depressing state of affairs, but then it was for the non deluded befor this point in time too.

fryry 4y ago
On the last point, I must be missing something obvious, but why don't those workers who have their passports taken report them lost/stolen and get a new one from their embassy?
- walrus01 4y ago
  Because their job is tied to company owned by the citizen of the host country who employs them (their visa sponsor), and they're probably sending money back home to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh to support a family of eight people. You report that and cause a legal fuss with your employers, you not only don't get paid your previous month of work, you get deported and banned from the UAE or Qatar or Saudi Arabia for life.
  - EduardoBautista 4y ago
    It is illegal to confiscate an employee's passport in the UAE. If it happens, it doesn't make it legal.

sourcecodeplz 4y ago

> illegal bribes Are there also legal bribes?

oxfordmale 4y ago
Yes, legal bribes are how most of the Anglo-Saxon world works. For example, if I want certain favours from the current UK government, I can give a friend of mine an interest-free loan for him to donate significant sums of money to the current ruling party (Tories). You get away with this as long as there is no written record and just a discussion on the golf club. Not surprisingly, the government may then award you lucrative contracts or change the law in subtle ways that are in your favour. Of course, the friend in question will then get endorsed for a lucrative position, a cushy consultancy job or a non-executive board membership.
- smcl 4y ago
  I think that would still be illegal but just very hard to prove and prosecute.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    Illegal means it is beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a violation of the law. People do not get thrown in jail for donating money to political parties. Suggesting ideas to political parties is also not illegal. It is only illegal if the money is donated for the sole purpose of influencing a particular decision.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- rob74 4y ago
  Those aren't legal either, unless you go by the motto "you are only guilty if you get caught"...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

it_citizen 4y ago

I wonder if the department of justice is going to launch the same enthusiastic corruption investigations they used to massively fine foreign competitors of American companies. \s

pjmlp 4y ago

I bet everyone had a stellar score on the code of condut and company values trainings. Hence why they are worthless beyond getting a checkmark on the yearly corporate trainings.

yakubin 4y ago

Honest question: what’s the difference between a bribe and a legal fee? E.g. when you apply for a UK visa, you need to pay over 1k GBP as an “application fee”. Why is this application fee not considered a bribe?

SiempreViernes 4y ago
When you buy groceries from the store, do you also consider that bribing the clerk? Of not, can you explain what you see as the difference?
- yakubin 4y ago
  The difference is I pay for what I get. With the visa application fee, there’s nothing that can be worth £1k there. Note that I didn’t include fees for healthcare and taxes in that figure. It’s just a nonsense fee on top for nothing.
  - SiempreViernes 4y ago
    So you didn't pay the application fee because access to the UK wasn't worth it?
    - yakubin 4y ago
      It is worth it. But it isn’t a compensation for any work done by the government you pay it to. The value was created by people who didn’t receive anything from that money. The government is just the intermediary taking fees for access to it. If bribes weren’t worth paying, they wouldn’t be a thing.
      - SiempreViernes 4y ago
        Sorry, you paid to get access and you got access? So it what exactly was the difference against the grocery store? You know they don't actually make the milk in the store, right?

aww_dang 4y ago

Illegal overseas bribes are distinct from Microsoft's domestic legal lobbying activities. When I worked as a bicycle courier in DC I recall picking up from Microsoft, 1401 I st. NW. No software was developed at this office. It was just highly paid lawyers and lobbyists. Consider how productive that is in real terms, and remember those costs are passed onto you as a consumer. The delivery was 9 Titleist golf balls in a box, each ball inside of an individual box. There was also a greeting card. The entire delivery was packaged inside of a bubble wrapped envelope. The congressperson wasn't interested in sending an aide outside to collect the package even after the contents were explained. The check inside of the greeting card for 10,000 USD was not enticing enough for them to come outside. In these scenarios, packages were sent to the "security trailer", which was no longer a trailer, but a concrete block structure nearby on Capitol Hill. Inside of the trailer, I was instructed to individually double bag each golf ball, with a barcode on the inner bag. A security person or Capitol Hill policeman pedantically ordered each step of the process from a drive-thru quality intercom system. For his safety, he stayed behind the bulletproof glass with a positive air pressure differential. He still had to sign my manifest to accept the delivery. It was like standing in front of a laboratory flow hood as I passed my clipboard into the robotic drawer. After bagging, I was instructed to individually x-ray each item. Next, the entire package was double bagged again with yet another barcode. Finally, I handed off the package through the airlock. About 15 minutes total. Could have been longer, but he already had my data entered into the computer system. I was a regular visitor. The entire procedure is absurd. The distinction of illegal bribes in the title speaks to this. Say what you will about the necessity of the state, but whether legal or illegally practiced, government gatekeepers are a net drain on the economy. If you cannot appreciate the productivity losses in abstract terms, consider how inefficient the processes are to simply deliver a check for ten-thousand dollars to a congressperson.

crooked-v 4y ago
I don't really understand what connection the security around packages has to do with the whole lobbying thing. It's hardly surprising they'd have some elaborate procedures around that when random people try to deliver pipe bombs or anthrax spores to Congresspeople every few years.

uwagar 4y ago

bribes are illegal. what is an illegal bribe? and what is this word using? say it like it is. microsoft is bribing.

davidguetta 4y ago
Lobbying is legal bribing

StevigeHoning 4y ago

Can one do business in the Middle East & Africa without bribing?

freetanga 4y ago

In other news, water is wet.

justsomehnguy 4y ago

OMG The article provides two internals audit reports, which are PDFs with blacked out names: > Exceed IT Services [0] > Diyar United Company [1] Yes, this is just the black bars on top the info. Not only author explicitly confirmed receiving teh internal MS documents but he didn't do a proper cleanup of the documents he provides to whole world. This guy, along with his accomplice in MS, is in deep, deep trouble if anyone bothers to come for them. [0] https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ugd/58a44b_456f670b335a4bf3806fb2a958e98e40.pdf https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ug... [1] https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ugd/58a44b_2108511f3b3e454eaffd0bac993d2861.pdf https://58a44b37-ba55-451b-989d-b8bc5339d45f.usrfiles.com/ug...

layer8 4y ago
You can also read the “end customer names” and “reseller names” (or rather, copy and paste them).

lhnz 4y ago

This is actually particularly bad. They followed company policy and pointed out the compliance issues but Microsoft did not reprimand the employee involved and instead promoted them into a position that they could more easily evade accountability and also punish the person that had drawn attention to compliance issues. It gets worse as they are put on a performance improvement plan (PIP), even though they have 18 years of experience and presumably had no significant performance issues up until this point. If the information about corruption within the post is true, Microsoft undoubtedly deserve to pay a significant fine, but unfortunately: > What is a shock: This time around, the SEC and DOJ > have both declined to investigate Microsoft over > the same types of bribes in the Middle East and > Africa. They acknowledged my evidence (which I > submitted three times) yet did not take up the > case, claiming that the current pandemic has > prevented them from gathering more evidence from > abroad—even though I have already provided > documentation that I believe shows Microsoft is in > breach of the 2019 agreement and is still > participating in corrupt business practices in > direct violation of U.S. law. I think that by not punishing this the SEC and DOJ are sending a signal to whistleblowers in large corporations that they do not take compliance seriously and that they will not protect employees that try to draw attention to wrongdoing. At the very least it suggests to me that when whistleblowing, you must avoid alerting anybody in your organisation that you disagree with what you see, and do everything through external parties instead of internal policies.

Haga 4y ago
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Ligma123 4y ago

Only europeans people with no contact with non-europeans believe the rest of the world works the same way as we do. If you want to do anything in those regions, bribes should be part of your budget, all the way down. Even the workers that need to travel to those places should have a budget for those bribes, as in some places even the police will try to get you in trouble if you don't give them money, or in some African countries, even food is accepted.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
popcalc 4y ago
>europeans people with no contact with non-europeans I think you mean 5-10 countries in Western, Northern Europe right? Most of Europe is rife with corruption on every level and always has been.
layer8 4y ago
How do you explain that the author apparently had no trouble closing large contracts without bribing?
- cutemonster 4y ago
  Seems there was lots of bribery going on all the time, he just didn't know about it, didn't take part in it himself: > many employees younger than me, in lower positions, were driving luxury cars and purchasing homes and it took until this event, for him to start connecting the dots: > the partner in the deal [...] had been terminated four months earlier for poor performance on the sales team, and corporate policy prohibits former employees from working as partners
  - layer8 4y ago
    I didn’t get the impression that there was any bribery going on in the deals he closed himself. Even if he only became aware of that after the fact, he’d have mentioned that more explicitly. Instead, he argues that he was fired despite very good performance, and it would be hypocritical if that performance was only made possible by bribes. So I don’t think this adds up.

mkoubaa 4y ago

Microsoft's mission to empower people anywhere in the world to do more apparently means transferring wealth to thugs in developing countries without actually delivering technology.

petro74 4y ago

I live in Africa. Nairobi, Kenya to be precise. One obvious problem I have seen is the procurement laws and procedures. Especially in government and public companies. For example, you need to go through a tender process to procure basic stuff like licenses for software. So a separate company (not Microsoft) submits a tender to "supply" another company for licenses to use Microsoft products. This opens up a clear avenue for corruption. And it is heavily exploited. These companies basically submit tenders for the these licenses at exorbitantly inflated prices while doing absolutely nothing. There is nothing preventing these public companies and government agencies for purchasing directly from Microsoft except for the procurement rules and procedures. So we end up in a situation where folks that are awarded these tenders end up pocketing large amounts for "supplying Microsoft software". Local Microsoft employees are obviously colluding with them. Reviewing these procurement rules and laws may have some impact in reducing these obvious form of corruption.

dagorenouf 4y ago

just to be clear, can a bribe ever be legal?

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

Bribery seems to be a thing that happens everywhere, cough..clarence thomas..cough...