Microsoft Hit With US Bribery Probe Over Deals in Hungary (wsj.com) 52
Microsoft is being investigated by U.S. authorities over potential bribery and corruption related to software sales in Hungary, WSJ reported Thursday. From a report: The investigation follows a series of similar probes into Microsoft business partners that surfaced in 2013 in five other countries. Microsoft made a push earlier this decade to expand in emerging markets, as well as smaller, middle-income countries like Hungary. In some cases, those bets have turned into legal and reputational challenges. The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are probing how Microsoft sold software such as Word and Excel to middleman firms in Hungary that then sold those products to government agencies there in 2013 and 2014, according to these people. Microsoft sold some of its products to these intermediaries at steep discounts, and then these firms sold the products to the Hungarian government at closer to full price, these people said.
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'This is Not Your Father's Microsoft' (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm... sure seems like they haven't changed.
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This is small potatoes versus the defense contracting industry. That's where the big boys play the real game of graft.
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So MS of old is associated with bribes and corruption in your mind? Of all the shit they've done during the years I can't remember one instance of corruption pissing me off. Abuse of their (near) monopoly? Several cases. Spreading FUD and lies about competition? Of course. Patenting obvious stuff? Natürlich.
This is different to what have made me angry about Intel in the past, there company approved "payoffs" to ensure their market dominance have been more of a general trend.
With the limited information
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None of it pissed you off? How about the corruption of the standards process that got Office XML declared a standard alongside a truly open one that was on the verge of being adopted in Europe. And then the subsequent 'support' of non-compliant versions of both Microsoft's own standard and the competing one, so that only Office could support documents produced in Office in either format.
If that didn't piss you off, then you don't care about the issues involved - or are such a Microsoft supporter that you
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So MS of old is associated with bribes and corruption in your mind?
Absolutely. Corruption, anticompetitive behavior and shitty code are all MS has ever been good at.
Why action for bribes in other countries? (Score:4, Informative)
The fact of the matter is, there are some places on earth where any business of any size is not going to be done without bribes.
Why punish Microsoft for doing what every other company does in Hungary?
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The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
I've never been able to understand why it's our business to prosecute someone else's criminals. Let Hungary prosecute them!!
Uh, because intervention works so well? (Score:3)
Uh, because rule of law is a good thing even internationally?
Well I guess 'Merica should just go in and NUKE THOSE GODLESS HUNGARIANS.
Rule of law is great but you can't enforce it everywhere, so why try for places that do not even want or accept a strong rule of law? All you will do by making American companies non-competitive there is even further weaken the rule of law abroad. Let large companies get a foothold in and they will slowly improve things.
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Rule of law is great but you can't enforce it everywhere,
But it can be enforced against a company incorporated in the US who breaks the law overseas. You honestly aren't dumb enough to think a US company can't be held accountable for breaking the law outside the country are you?
Do you also think a US citizen can go to Thailand for underage hookers and not be prosecuted back home?
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rule of law is a good thing
Who's law? What is illegal in this country* may be SOP in other countries.
*And that doesn't mean is doesn't go on here. It just gets driven underground. Or managed to ensure 'compliance' while still slipping the politicians their cash. And having it go on in the shadows may be fa more ethically damaging than just making payoffs out in the open.
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The key word here is Foreign. Slipping a few bucks to domestic politicians is protected speech. This wasn't passed to prosecute criminal activities overseas. It was passed to keep all the political contribution money here at home.
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Personally, I hope not.
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The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
I've never been able to understand why it's our business to prosecute someone else's criminals. Let Hungary prosecute them!!
Because the criminals are often the ones running their government, particularly with these sorts of crimes.
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'ER' for the same reason you prosecute people for rape and murder even though other people rape and murder. The idea is to prosecute everyone who commits that crime, rehabilitate them if possible, if not lock them up for the rest for the rest of their lives. For corporations, you must eventually fold them up, if they continue to repeat the same corrupt practices. In the case of M$ take it's source code for all of it's products and make them public domain free to access by all other corporations.
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Rehabilitate who though? That is the giant flaw in your argument; you cannot do business in some places without bribes, that is simply how the real world is.
The most meaningless and harmful laws are those that straight-up ignore how things work in reality, and punish the victims. The "war on drug (users)" is one. A law where you punish corporations for following local custom in business completely outside the US, is another.
There is no rehabilitation. Only punishment, without true purpose or meaning or
Total Cost of Ownership (Score:1)
I wonder if Microsoft includes this in the brochure?
How to deal with corrupted countries (Score:3)
It is nice to see US also goes after US companies for foreign corruption cases.
However, to defend Microsoft (I never thought I would do that one day), how were they supposed to deal with countries where you have to bribe in order to do business?
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How to deal with it? Simple - don't. I know it's hard for the business world where bribery, er "treating the customer well" with lavish gifts, dinners, drinks, vacations, etc, is somehow considered normal, but that should stop. Yes, it's nice to be on the receiving end of that, but it raises the costs for everyone.
For a company like Microsoft, which is a virtual monopoly, it's completely unnecessary. What is the Hungry government going to do, not buy Word and Excel licenses? I could understand the ques
Microsoft bribery/stock referrals (Score:3)