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So the part right before your quote says: “For more than a decade, Walmart used middlemen to make dubious payments to governments around the globe in order to open new locations, United States prosecutors and securities regulators said in a settlement agreement on Thursday.”

The parts you quote are the NYT reporting the prosecutor’s allegations as fact. But the passage you quoted also explains everything you need to know about why nobody went to jail.

“The plea agreement, which was technically based on the company’s improper record keeping....”

Wait—so Wal-Mart did all these bad things (they must have, the NYT reported them as fact), but the plea agreement is “technically” based on “improper record keeping?”

If you actually read the facts section of the SEC submission linked from the article, it’s a real snooze fest. There were issues here and there, people were fired, several rounds of compliance programs were instituted, etc. But little to substantiate the prosecution narrative recounted as fact by the NYT. There is a reason Wal-Mart spent a billion dollars investigating this case but the government agreed to settle for less than $300 million—once prosecutors dug in, there wasn’t much of a story there.

I’ll also add:

> As an individual citizen, if I intentionally failed to file my taxes properly, report crimes I knew of, or even fire a housekeeper or other low level employee I knew had been committing crimes that benefited me you can be sure I would be getting more than the equivalent of a parking fine

The IRS’s response to people who intentionally don’t file tax returns—unless the conduct is really outrageous—almost always is to just tell them to file, and pay the deficiency with interest. Except in special circumstances, such as lawyers reporting on other lawyers, ordinary individuals don’t have an obligation to report crimes they’re aware of. Finally, unless it can be argued that you encouraged your housekeeper to commit crimes, or somehow facilitated them, I don’t think there would be anything illegal about not firing him either. Like, you probably can’t criminally prosecute someone for accepting gifts from someone they know is a drug dealer and purchased the gifts with ill-gotten money.

But that is how this works, the Government has a hard time proving intent without a smoking gun. The Walmart execs are smart enough not to incriminate themselves with any emails/phone calls. So the government has a fairly strong case, but Walmart gets to plea agreement which wipes one of the main pieces of evidence (effectively the bookkeeping coverup) in exchange for paying the fine and closing the case.

Both sides are happy, no one at walmart goes to jail, they pay some trivial fine, and the prosecutors get a raise and a bullet point on their resume. The public gets to see justice in action...

If you don’t have good evidence of intent, you don’t have “a fairly strong case.” Intent is the lynchpin of criminal law, especially when you’re trying to hold someone liable who didn’t do the actual illegal act. You know what gets you a gold star as a prosecutor? Putting people in prison. The guy who put Raj Rajaratnam in prison is now a partner at one of the top law firms.

You know there's a difference between what is most likely true and what's provable in court, right? It's perfectly reasonable to see all the facts, many of which aren't permitted to be considered by a jury, and then say, "wow,these laws are messed up, they let the powerful people get away with crimes. We should change that and hold them accountable."

Likewise, it's not logically consistent to say " well, yeah it looks really bad but because a court can't prove it, I'm going to advocate they they are morally innocent. " Moral and legal aren't the same thing.

> Moral and legal aren't the same thing.

Correct, but you shouldn't go to jail for immoral behaviour.

> It's perfectly reasonable to see all the facts, many of which aren't permitted to be considered by a jury, and then say, "wow,these laws are messed up, they let the powerful people get away with crimes. We should change that and hold them accountable."

The IRS does this, and it's horrible, but the accountability comes in the form of an increased tax obligation and not jail time.

Going to jail for doing something that was legal, but has become illegal after the fact, isn't something that benefits anyone but the ruling class, and isn't something that I would advocate for.

My dude/tte, please look at who you're trying to educate about law.

Let's just say employees raise alarm and they're intentionally ignored to sweep things under the rug, I feel it'd be incredibly easy to claim that nothing happened due to improper record keeping

Also, if Walmart wasn't in the wrong then why would they agree to a $330M settlement?

A $330 million settlement for a company with a $500 billion per year business. That's a business nearly the size of Poland's entire economy. It's a very small settlement. It's entirely plausible that what they did was not as bad as what the mob would like to believe, and that also they're not innocent.

“$500 billion per year business” is a sort of meaningless term, especially in retail, when you compare to the fine.

Walmart’s operating income was “just” $22M with a final net income of “just” $6.7B (in the ballpark of large tech company quarterly profits).

It’s still true that a $330M settlement is then just 5% of their annual profit (and thus looks like that’s how the number was chosen), but comparing to their $500B revenue isn’t directly meaningful (though it is for your Polish GDP, sort of!).

> But little to substantiate the prosecution narrative recounted as fact by the NYT.

I think you missed the part where they settled.

> There is a reason Wal-Mart spent a billion dollars investigating this case but the government agreed to settle for less than $300 million—once prosecutors dug in, there wasn’t much of a story there.

Wouldn't that rather suggest that they feared they could be liable for much, much more than a billion, and they jumped at the chance to make it all go away for just a "paltry" $300 million?

>If you actually read the facts section of the SEC submission linked from the article, it’s a real snooze fest. There were issues here and there, people were fired, several rounds of compliance programs were instituted, etc. But little to substantiate the prosecution narrative recounted as fact by the NYT. There is a reason Wal-Mart spent a billion dollars investigating this case but the government agreed to settle for less than $300 million—once prosecutors dug in, there wasn’t much of a story there.

Of course. What do we think Walmart level players are? Amateurs? Those kind of jobs never leave much paper trail or proof...

As the PM in one of the most corrupt governments in a small country used to say, to brush off allegations of bribery and other corruption against members of government, "Let he who has proof take it to the prosecutors"...

As in "yeah, good luck trying to prove what we did"...

(Only 2 decades later, when that party had declined, and their influence wasn't as strong, would several top officials, ex ministers etc, end up in jail for those things. Had it still be going strong, there would not be anything done...)

I'm not an apologist for Walmart, kind of the opposite actually, but in a lot of places bribes are not seen as malicious or corrupt just unspoken rules.

A friend of mine from Nepal said something along the lines of "bribes are just a lubricate to an intentionally slow and unorganized bureaucracy". Places like China, India, Vietnam, & Taiwan all have pretty well know backdoor policies of this.

Its a bit old but https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-da... and https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/china-ge-siemens... are both good read for this.

I've also known of UN project directors who had to convince governmental ministers that the UN's no bribe policy was not just a bargaining method.

The FCPA (the law Walmart violated) specifically allows such "lubrication" bribes, where you're basically just paying a lowly government official a small amount to do his/her job a little faster. The forbidden bribes happen when you pay a higher-level official to make a decision in your favor that they otherwise might not have made. Huge difference in the eyes of the law.

I've worked somewhere that the policy was you don't pay bribes. You hire a local company capable of navigating the nuances of the local permitting process.

And what happens when your consultant bills you for a big but vaguely described fee?

I am sure that everyone involved knows what it is about. Eventually they will get caught and squeal. The local guys have immunity from local prosecution but FBI is a different story.

Usually a leader's family member or a trusted person will create a consulting business and help you "navigate" local rules and obtain permits. As soon as money is exchanged a phone call is made and you're untouchable. You call it a bribe, they call it their money. Just like their salary, bribes are part of their compensation.

Say, Russia, can close any business, any time they want. It's impossible to comply with all their rules and regs (by design) and even if you could, no court will rule in your favor. So...enter middlemen.

Top leaders knew the problem and they will use bribes again, or close shop. Very simple is a lot of countries. Pay up or go home.

Yeah but should the US be using taxpayer resources on this at all?

The result of policing kickbacks is a kickback?

Overhead cost