

At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item  - jderick
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21siemens.html?pagewanted=all

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h34t
Bravo to the investigation team.

I started doing international business in 2003 when I was 20, and this article
says it like it is. I'm really happy to see that people are working hard for
institutional change, and the media is noticing. Articles like this put cracks
in my cynical shell.

Just like prostitution is a line item in business in Bangkok (In 2005 I was
the single white male in a group of asian businessmen recruiting Thai workers
for a foreign labour contract, and before almost every dinner the host would
bring a dozen girls out and ask us to pick one to be our 'companion' for the
evening -- totally standard practice which I've since seen all over Asia), and
mispricing on invoices is standard practice almost everywhere too (my first-
ever international transaction was from Guatemala, and the shipment came with
a commercial invoice of 10% of the real purchase price, to evade taxes, and I
didn't even ask for this or know they were going to do it), money-under-the-
table-to-government has dramatic, massive consequences for people everywhere,
especially in the developing world. But it mostly goes unseen and unmentioned,
for obvious reasons.

For those so inclined, Raymond Baker wrote a really good tome on this called
"Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market
System".

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gruseom
There are some amazing statements in here:

 _"Bribery was Siemens’s business model," said Uwe Dolata, the spokesman for
the association of federal criminal investigators in Germany_

 _Before 1999, bribes were deductible as business expenses under the German
tax code_

 _To handle the business side of bribery, the executives turned to Mr.
Siekaczek, a man renowned within the company for his personal honesty_

~~~
ckinnan
The deductible bribe was true in much of Europe until the mid 1990s, not just
Germany. The US pushed them to change the laws.

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markdionne
The article failed to mention that Siemens' auditors, KPMG, were also
implicated and that they are being dropped by Siemens.

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greyman
I would like to ask - is Siemens somehow unique in doing this? In the region
where I live, from unofficial sources of course, I heard this is a very common
practice when a company wants to win a contract...especially government one.

~~~
ardit33
it is kinda of a sham when EU countries go around and tell less developed
countries to "curb their corruption", while their darling corporates are a
major contribution to global corruption, and that has been allowed for so
long.

~~~
kirse
I especially could not stand the EU vs. Microsoft case where those jackasses
heaped on tons of fines to basically siphon a few billion dollars away from a
US corporation.

As much as I know MS has their issues with anti-trust, boy did that piss me
off.

~~~
kragen
Those guys should be in jail, not paying fines. It's too bad it took a foreign
country to even levy a fine.

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ars
Who cares about the payer of a bribe, what about the recipient? That's far
more important.

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diN0bot
must be nytimes member to read this article.

~~~
matthavener
check bugmenot.com for a workaround

