5 ms·

Many years ago (15+ years ago), I worked for a company that wanted to sell some software product to China. Now, you can't legally use bribes where I am, "the EU

Many years ago (15+ years ago), I worked for a company that wanted to sell some software product to China. Now, you can't legally use bribes where I am, "the EU says NO". What you can do is hire a Chinese consulting company, they will invoice you a surprisringly high amount for their services and take some of that money and use it to grease the wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy. At least at that point in time, it was basically required to win any sort of contract on that level in China. Microsoft using bribes in Africa, the Middle East or parts of Asia isn't a Microsoft problem, it a problem that those specific countries need to deal with. Microsoft would most likely have made their sales anyway, if bribes hadn't been a thing, it would just be slightly cheaper to do so, so I don't think management at Microsoft cares one way or the other.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Company "fasttracked" worker visas to china, are basically olympic sport visas etc. reassigned for a bribe.
ngcazz 4y ago
It's absolutely a Microsoft problem that they don't take a moral stand on bribing.
- lynx23 4y ago
  Morale in a for-profit company is a virtual concept, it simply does not exist in reality. Claiming it does is likely delusionary or an attempt to hide the truth.
  - pulse7 4y ago
    You are implying that running a for-profit company is immoral. Of course you can run a for-profit company in moral and ethical way!
    - usrusr 4y ago
      Then it's a for-profit-and-some-other-things. And when there is more than one owner those other things better be defined in a legally binding way or else.
    - lynx23 4y ago
      No, yoou can't. Claiming otherwise is pretty naive.
      - pulse7 4y ago
        Teach me, please... What is immoral if you open your Limited company and sell your programming services to some customers and make profit doing it?
        lynx23 4y ago
        Make it economically bad times, and the customer a shady actor. Will the company deliberately close and stop offering its services, despite needing to put food on the table? Or will the company just go along and do the coding for shady customer? Now, put a lot of air in that thought-baloon and you will see how basically every for-profit will end up doing immoral things.
        pulse7 4y ago
        You are wrong! Not every for-profit will end up doing immoral things in this case! Some will move on to do other stuff...
        sharemywin 4y ago
        Most people in the developed world are all immoral according this argument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsfzLTBuo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsfzLTBuo0
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a saying for a reason
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    "Morals" in any organization large enough for responsibility to be sufficiently diffuse is a virtue statement. Every large organization will sociopathically and amorally advance its KPIs. It just so happens that some organizations are in or adjacent to morals as part of their core business hence why the church comes out looking a little better than Monsanto.
  - eru 4y ago
    Your argument works just as well for any other company or organisation. The worst morale failures in history have been perpetrated by governments.
- mrweasel 4y ago
  They don't take a moral stand on a lot of things. Most of the large companies in the world are deeply immoral, but we draw the line at bribing, in a culture that encourages it? I'd argue that it's a WTO problem, let's just cut of all ties to countries where bribing in any form is acceptable, leaving us with what? The Nordic countries and New Zealand? I'm not arguing that it's not an issue, but what would you have them do exactly? The bribing isn't going to disappear because Microsoft says no. Africa will just be running on Red Star OS and Tecent Cloud.
  - eru 4y ago
    Microsoft is an American company, so the US can just forbid Microsoft from paying bribes. Just like the US is using their clout to force people around the world to eg force French companies not to do business with Iran. > I'd argue that it's a WTO problem, let's just cut of all ties to countries where bribing in any form is acceptable, leaving us with what? As a compromise, you could target countries in which bribing is de jure _legal_, and worry about de facto later.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      >>US can just forbid Microsoft from paying bribes. That's already the case. It's already illegal for an American company to pay bribes abroad, even if it's "legal" there. The problem is that like many other people said - you just hire a local "consulting" business that handles that for you and your hands are clean.
      - eru 4y ago
        > The problem is that like many other people said - you just hire a local "consulting" business that handles that for you and your hands are clean. Just make that illegal, too? And make sure that ignorance is not an excuse before the law. (Something like gross negligence, if you don't check on your subcontractors well enough.)
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      I wonder how much the citizens of a country rife with low-level corruption would appreciate the US taking the high road and refusing to allow their companies to do business with them.
SiempreViernes 4y ago
No, this isn't Microsoft simply "paying the cost of business", this is Microsoft tolerating its own employees stealing millions for themselves on the excuse that their other corrupt practices brings in business.
- codebolt 4y ago
  Yes, this is Microsoft (or its employees) siphoning public funds from corrupt governments that those societies sorely need.
  - mrweasel 4y ago
    Those funds are lost regardless. There's no action that Microsoft or any other Western company can take that would do anything but leave them with a slightly cleaner conscience. As long as corruption is accepted those funds will never be directed towards schools, hospitals or infrastructure anyway. It's a shitty argument, I'll grant you that, but it's not a problem that Microsoft can fix. They should take the moral high ground, but the money was always going to be siphoned of.
  - from 4y ago
    So the money should go to a local construction company to “build affordable houses” that will never get built or buy cheap computers with a 300% markup? Without systematically changing the culture in these countries corruption is never going to go away and no one has proved the FCPA has moved the needle anywhere.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      It's gonna be tough for the West to try and use their sway over multinationals to stop this kind of behavior overseas when they can't even stop it at home. Not that they shouldn't try to do both, but there are limits to what can be achieved in this area.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      It doesn't matter if the country has corruption problems on it's own, we shouldn't be party to that, and we shouldn't facilitate or encourage it by doing business with them. That's the whole point of these laws.
vlovich123 4y ago
Every year I’m forced to watch training videos saying that it’s against US laws to be involved in bribery abroad. As I understand it, there’s severe federal penalties for briberies committed abroad. It may not be a Microsoft problem exclusively, but I can’t imagine “hey everyone else is breaking the law” is going to work as a defense.
- mrweasel 4y ago
  It's the same in the EU, hence the "consulting" companies. Don't get to hung up on the fact that you know the money is going towards a bribe, because legally you didn't do it, nor did you technically ask anyone else to do it. All you did was hire a company that understand the local business culture and they helped facilitate the contract. We even had a visiting member of the EU parliament and the CEO directly asked about this scenario. The PM argued that it wasn't ideal, but that it was part of doing business with, in this case, China. Technically, yeah you know, legally, just don't have the word bribe in the contract with the consultants.
  - op00to 4y ago
    The "arms-length consulting" is absolutely illegal in the US, I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to be that way for the EU.
    - ridgered4 4y ago
      Based on those trainings I also have to take yearly, the US has a weird carve out for "facilitation payments" that are basically just bribes to cut through red tape and delays that probably exist just to extract bribes in the first place. But I do remember the training calling out using a third party intermediary to launder your bribes isn't a defense and you're suppose to be responsible for how your money is used. I suspect the later isn't well enforced though but I couldn't say.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
jrockway 4y ago
I had to take some training at work on not doing exactly that. I guess the regulators are on to the little scam.
Nullabillity 4y ago
So hold the company liable for its subcontractors' violations. This isn't rocket surgery.
op00to 4y ago
> Now, you can't legally use bribes where I am, "the EU says NO". What you can do is hire a Chinese consulting company, they will invoice you a surprisringly high amount for their services and take some of that money and use it to grease the wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy. Just so y'all know, people have been convicted for international bribery in the US using "arms-length" consultants. This has been called out in every ethics training I've had to take since like 2004.
pcthrowaway 4y ago
All this recent talk of "banning AI work for the sake of the economy" (perhaps when they're fully competitive with human-equivalent workers across all multidisciplinary domains) has had me thinking the money will just go to international consulting firms or independent contractors that can then use the AI tools as they wish. That's why people need to start thinking of these issues globally, not in terms of what "their country" can do
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
> use it to grease the wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy. "Facilitating payments" aka "grease payments" are explicitly allowed in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This article is about actual, real bribery, which is illegal under the FCPA.
wodenokoto 4y ago
The article isn’t so much about Microsoft paying bribes to grease the wheels as it is about Microsoft employees skimming money from the contract.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Company "fasttracked" worker visas to china, are basically olympic sport visas etc. reassigned for a bribe.

ngcazz 4y ago

It's absolutely a Microsoft problem that they don't take a moral stand on bribing.

lynx23 4y ago
Morale in a for-profit company is a virtual concept, it simply does not exist in reality. Claiming it does is likely delusionary or an attempt to hide the truth.
- pulse7 4y ago
  You are implying that running a for-profit company is immoral. Of course you can run a for-profit company in moral and ethical way!
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Then it's a for-profit-and-some-other-things. And when there is more than one owner those other things better be defined in a legally binding way or else.
  - lynx23 4y ago
    No, yoou can't. Claiming otherwise is pretty naive.
    - pulse7 4y ago
      Teach me, please... What is immoral if you open your Limited company and sell your programming services to some customers and make profit doing it?
      - lynx23 4y ago
        Make it economically bad times, and the customer a shady actor. Will the company deliberately close and stop offering its services, despite needing to put food on the table? Or will the company just go along and do the coding for shady customer? Now, put a lot of air in that thought-baloon and you will see how basically every for-profit will end up doing immoral things.
        pulse7 4y ago
        You are wrong! Not every for-profit will end up doing immoral things in this case! Some will move on to do other stuff...
      - sharemywin 4y ago
        Most people in the developed world are all immoral according this argument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsfzLTBuo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsfzLTBuo0
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a saying for a reason
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  "Morals" in any organization large enough for responsibility to be sufficiently diffuse is a virtue statement. Every large organization will sociopathically and amorally advance its KPIs. It just so happens that some organizations are in or adjacent to morals as part of their core business hence why the church comes out looking a little better than Monsanto.
- eru 4y ago
  Your argument works just as well for any other company or organisation. The worst morale failures in history have been perpetrated by governments.
mrweasel 4y ago
They don't take a moral stand on a lot of things. Most of the large companies in the world are deeply immoral, but we draw the line at bribing, in a culture that encourages it? I'd argue that it's a WTO problem, let's just cut of all ties to countries where bribing in any form is acceptable, leaving us with what? The Nordic countries and New Zealand? I'm not arguing that it's not an issue, but what would you have them do exactly? The bribing isn't going to disappear because Microsoft says no. Africa will just be running on Red Star OS and Tecent Cloud.
- eru 4y ago
  Microsoft is an American company, so the US can just forbid Microsoft from paying bribes. Just like the US is using their clout to force people around the world to eg force French companies not to do business with Iran. > I'd argue that it's a WTO problem, let's just cut of all ties to countries where bribing in any form is acceptable, leaving us with what? As a compromise, you could target countries in which bribing is de jure _legal_, and worry about de facto later.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    >>US can just forbid Microsoft from paying bribes. That's already the case. It's already illegal for an American company to pay bribes abroad, even if it's "legal" there. The problem is that like many other people said - you just hire a local "consulting" business that handles that for you and your hands are clean.
    - eru 4y ago
      > The problem is that like many other people said - you just hire a local "consulting" business that handles that for you and your hands are clean. Just make that illegal, too? And make sure that ignorance is not an excuse before the law. (Something like gross negligence, if you don't check on your subcontractors well enough.)
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I wonder how much the citizens of a country rife with low-level corruption would appreciate the US taking the high road and refusing to allow their companies to do business with them.

SiempreViernes 4y ago

No, this isn't Microsoft simply "paying the cost of business", this is Microsoft tolerating its own employees stealing millions for themselves on the excuse that their other corrupt practices brings in business.

codebolt 4y ago
Yes, this is Microsoft (or its employees) siphoning public funds from corrupt governments that those societies sorely need.
- mrweasel 4y ago
  Those funds are lost regardless. There's no action that Microsoft or any other Western company can take that would do anything but leave them with a slightly cleaner conscience. As long as corruption is accepted those funds will never be directed towards schools, hospitals or infrastructure anyway. It's a shitty argument, I'll grant you that, but it's not a problem that Microsoft can fix. They should take the moral high ground, but the money was always going to be siphoned of.
- from 4y ago
  So the money should go to a local construction company to “build affordable houses” that will never get built or buy cheap computers with a 300% markup? Without systematically changing the culture in these countries corruption is never going to go away and no one has proved the FCPA has moved the needle anywhere.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    It's gonna be tough for the West to try and use their sway over multinationals to stop this kind of behavior overseas when they can't even stop it at home. Not that they shouldn't try to do both, but there are limits to what can be achieved in this area.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    It doesn't matter if the country has corruption problems on it's own, we shouldn't be party to that, and we shouldn't facilitate or encourage it by doing business with them. That's the whole point of these laws.

vlovich123 4y ago

Every year I’m forced to watch training videos saying that it’s against US laws to be involved in bribery abroad. As I understand it, there’s severe federal penalties for briberies committed abroad. It may not be a Microsoft problem exclusively, but I can’t imagine “hey everyone else is breaking the law” is going to work as a defense.

mrweasel 4y ago
It's the same in the EU, hence the "consulting" companies. Don't get to hung up on the fact that you know the money is going towards a bribe, because legally you didn't do it, nor did you technically ask anyone else to do it. All you did was hire a company that understand the local business culture and they helped facilitate the contract. We even had a visiting member of the EU parliament and the CEO directly asked about this scenario. The PM argued that it wasn't ideal, but that it was part of doing business with, in this case, China. Technically, yeah you know, legally, just don't have the word bribe in the contract with the consultants.
- op00to 4y ago
  The "arms-length consulting" is absolutely illegal in the US, I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to be that way for the EU.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    Based on those trainings I also have to take yearly, the US has a weird carve out for "facilitation payments" that are basically just bribes to cut through red tape and delays that probably exist just to extract bribes in the first place. But I do remember the training calling out using a third party intermediary to launder your bribes isn't a defense and you're suppose to be responsible for how your money is used. I suspect the later isn't well enforced though but I couldn't say.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

jrockway 4y ago

I had to take some training at work on not doing exactly that. I guess the regulators are on to the little scam.

Nullabillity 4y ago

So hold the company liable for its subcontractors' violations. This isn't rocket surgery.

op00to 4y ago

> Now, you can't legally use bribes where I am, "the EU says NO". What you can do is hire a Chinese consulting company, they will invoice you a surprisringly high amount for their services and take some of that money and use it to grease the wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy. Just so y'all know, people have been convicted for international bribery in the US using "arms-length" consultants. This has been called out in every ethics training I've had to take since like 2004.

pcthrowaway 4y ago

All this recent talk of "banning AI work for the sake of the economy" (perhaps when they're fully competitive with human-equivalent workers across all multidisciplinary domains) has had me thinking the money will just go to international consulting firms or independent contractors that can then use the AI tools as they wish. That's why people need to start thinking of these issues globally, not in terms of what "their country" can do

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago

> use it to grease the wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy. "Facilitating payments" aka "grease payments" are explicitly allowed in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This article is about actual, real bribery, which is illegal under the FCPA.

wodenokoto 4y ago

The article isn’t so much about Microsoft paying bribes to grease the wheels as it is about Microsoft employees skimming money from the contract.