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Comment by lemoncookiechip | Hacker News Reader

> "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 have no words for this one. I guess being a trillion dollar company comes with a lot of benefits.

Source: https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribe...

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More likely that Microsoft learned a very good lesson from their 1990s encounter with the DOJ, but it wasn't the hoped for "stop doing illegal and unethical things" but instead "make more and better targeted political contributions."

and share data with 3 letter agencies

Another form of corruption.

Are the bribes being directed by MS US or are these things taking place in overseas offices where customs are different? One example was Hungary --I imagine Ukraine and Nigeria too would have executives there who are part of the local culture where they do things differently.

While the actions go afoul of US law, they may be in line with local customs culture and practices --that is harder to root out as now you are trying to change another culture (cultural imperialism as it was called).

If this is being directed from the US, then it's easier to root out.

Yes, a bribe in one country is often seen as just the cost of doing business in another.

In the US should tips be considered bribes? What if you tip at the beginning rather than the end in order to get better service?

this is a formal fallacy - joining something substantial, serious and a matter of public law, to something personal, of little consequence, and governed at a local level. please reconsider this as this important public discussion evolves on YNews?

What is your definition of bribe then?

Keep in mind that in countries like Cambodia and Yemen, something like 70% of public companies receive bribes. It is very much common practice and culturally acceptable.

I would say at that level of acceptance it isn’t a bribe.

It is a bribe but it is accepted and perhaps not illegal

It probably is illegal but the countries have weak rule of law (if rule of law is even a thing in those countries at all). Note that there are differences between fees and bribery, if something can be legally presented as a fee, it is no longer considered a bribe (important if you are an American or American company).

This is why I brought up the example of pre-tipping. It is clearly not a fee but it is generally accepted. If you hand the Valet a $20 and say please park it close, is it a tip, fee, or bribe?

How about at a bar, can you tell the bar tender "I have an extra $5 if you make it a heavy pour"?

How about attending the Salesforce conference but it's mostly because you want to visit SF and see Metallica/Chainsmokers?

We have bribes in the US, we just don't think of them as bribes.

That’s because none of those things are bribes. The definition of bribe is

* persuade (someone) to act in one's favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement.*

Tipping your waitress isn’t illegally or dishonestly persuading someone to act in your favor.

Sure it is, tipping a bartender for a heavy pour can be interpreted as colluding with the bartender to steal alcohol from the bar owner. Both illegal and dishonest.

Asking your company to send you to Salesforce just to see Metallica/Chainsmokers is clearly dishonest, the expectation is that your primary reason for going is to network and learn + represent your company.

At least when we did anti corruption training for Microsoft China, the emphasis was on government employees, but that could also apply to grad students with stipends and anyone working for an SOE. So you can tip the doorman as long as they aren't working for the state, but you can't buy a grad student lunch (without pre-clearance anyways).

Usually when you think bribe you think paying someone to get an advantage or edge, when everyone is paying something it’s just called the price.

His example was fine and doesn’t stand alone. Who’s to say that other countries don’t consider US lobbying to be a form of bribery?

Realistically, no country is going to see their own bribery as actual bribery because no one wants to have to blatantly admit they’re the bad guy.

There are laws around transparency in lobbying in the US. It would be bribery if you didn't abide by those laws when conducting your lobbying activities.

Not Poster, but I agree to a degree. It’s defined as such but in practice it can have the effects of bribery. If so, is it then legal bribery?

Politicians set up foundations and then people or organizations coincidentally benefiting from some legislation donate or underwrite these foundations…

It is also super easy to get around those transparencies - the lobbying system in the US is for sure a big big problem

Bribery with extra steps!

> something personal, of little consequence, and governed at a local level

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?id=D...

I consider the associated penalty in the US as a bribe of public officials and cost of doing business. It takes a special level of hubris for Americans to go “noo, its different because we have due process”, when the user experience of a simpler bribe and slightly more convoluted bribe is 1:1

I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials.

I don't think that's necessary part of local culture. Of course in poor country officials with $200/month salary are happy to get $1000 gift for signing $100 000 agreement. Western companies are huge part of corruption source here. That's my opinion.

I've heard that Ikea decided not to bribe officials, so they didn't get approval to build their shops here. I kind of applaud them if that's true and I wish every so-called civilized company took that stance. But money doesn't stink I guess.

> I don't think that's necessary part of local culture

> Ikea decided not to bribe officials, so they didn't get approval to build their shops here

Pick one

The OP's comment feels like debating about origin. Is it due to local culture or the standard being set by external actors and their culture

MS has also been involved in bribery scandals all over Europe. Sometimes they were found guilty, sometimes the other party to the corruption charge found a way to make it all go away (more corruption). But when you do this all over the place the "it's the way things are done there" changes to "it's the way you do things". Every time MS is firing a couple of "rogue employees" because they got caught, not because they did it. And nothing changes at leadership level.

Their way of doing things certainly extends to the SEC and DOJ via more convoluted and corrupt influencing paths.

I can tell you that on a "small" scale that's not something required, at least I did not pay bribes in my little life, although sometimes it could make things faster or cheaper I guess, but that's my principles as I hate corruption.

Now Ikea-scale that could be unavoidable but I prefer not to have Ikea rather than living with corrupt officials around riding in their Mercedeses, showing off that living a honest life is strictly worse than living a criminal life. So children learn that you have to demand bribes to be successful in this life. That's never-ending circle. And worse of all it's partially fueled by foreign companies.

Same in India. In fact, public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes.

It's just absolutely normal to get literally anything done with a government office in almost any non-western country.

> public officials are paid very little with the expectation that they will supplement their income with bribes.

I'd like to offer my own perspective on this issue, having spent a lot of time in the third-world, that may not be obvious to many of us in the western world or from more developed economies.

Many countries that are struggling with i.e. building robust transportation and energy infrastructure, are also struggling with the infrastructure that enables the reliable collection and enforcement of taxes. These issues happen to be related. Tax collection in the US isn't perfect, but it generally works. What do you do when huge parts of your economy runs on cash or when huge swaths of your population don't even have bank accounts?

There's a joke that bribes in the third-world are "directly paid taxes". There's a kernel of truth there. If Microsoft pays $100 in tax that's paid to a govt salary, versus that tax not existing and them paying it to the same official, what's the difference? Loss of accountability and oversight, yes.

BUT -- the reason bribery is so egregious in the West is that the officials taking the bribes are already fairly compensated. Also, the Western system of government is filled with unethical bribe-analogues, in for example the lobbying system we have, worse in some sense is that this unethical behavior is codified into law in a way the general public may not agree with but has no real way of changing (refer to Princeton voter preference study).

Consider all that when these "corruption index" lists are published where the US are the good guys with a green-colored country and countries in the third-world are red-colored bad guys. /rant

Even in that light bribes are still bad. With a tax I can look at the law and know exactly how much I need to pay, and also how much my competition paid. That later is a big deal, if my competitor different from me, then they have an advantage over me (sometimes this is a larger bribe ensuring better service, sometimes it is a cheaper bribe would have done the same).

Also, bribes are not always money. Many are paid in sex. Not only does this exploit women (as if that isn't bad enough), but it also means it may not be every possible for me to compete so long as the woman my competitor got is willing.

One could argue it’s more efficient. If you need to get something done, at least there is a way to receive service whereas in the US because there is little bribery, you’re at the mercy of the bureaucrat who doesn’t depend on your bribe to survive and so has lost the incentive to serve you.

In the west we simply don't recognize that system as democracy. For your officials to not take bribes means their relatives get offended that the office doesn't get them special treatment. That is feudalism. It means you built nothing together and have nothing to be proud of.

If it's anything like eastern Europe it's really not that bad, just different. It just means the state has less direct control over its employees. In some cases this is good for the populace. In some cases this is bad for the populace.

If the people in the building permitting offices in CA got paid the way they do in India there probably wouldn't be a housing crisis there.

Yup, it is mindbogglingly unimaginable to people who spent their whole lives living in the west, but as someone who moved out of Russia over a decade ago, it is the exact same thing there. Extremely normalized in every single aspect.

Applying for a passport? Well, you can do it normally, wait 9-12 months, hope papers don't get lost in the process (again), and maybe eventually you will be able to get it after a 2nd or 3rd try. Maybe not, who knows, you might just give up.

Or, instead, you could give "little something" to the passport clerk and their boss, and your passport will get reliably done in 3-4 months. And this "little something" is pretty much expected, and most people who can afford will pay it. A lot of governmental services are just built with an expectation of a bribe. If a bribe isn't present, then the process will almost definitely go wrong in every single way possible.

Same with cops, except worse, because much more is at stake. Routine "ID check stops" are expected, and you better have a bribe ready, unless you want to get in trouble for "insubordination" or something much worse.

Pretty much any interaction with government or anything even tangentially related, where you need to get something done, you are going to be almost ostracized and make your life miserable if you don't bribe. Bribing gets truly awful and scary when it is an everyday expectation on even the most routine levels.

EDIT: People in comments have pointed out that India isn't like that at all. My comment wasn't meant to have anything to do with India. I have never been there, so I cannot make a statement on it either way. I was only trying to describe the realities of "bribes are the expected norm in everyday life" experience using the place I was personally familiar with, which was Russia.

12 months, in India now getting a passport take 1-4 weeks with no bribe involved.

Absolutely this.. Things in India have changed a lot in the last decade. Passports are one example. It used to take months when I was a kid. My first passport took 3 months from application to getting it in hand and needed an "agent". My last one was through "taktal" - expedited application by paying extra fees and I got an SMS that the passport was sent to the printers by the time I walked out of the passport office. Another sms that it was dispatched next day and the day after I had it in my hand. No bribes, no agents, super smooth.

For the common person, the most corrupt organizations they would encounter is around land and house registration, cops and maybe the DMV. If you work for the government, then it gets even worse as you are expected to pay for the job, pay for transfer to a nicer place etc. However, it is getting better every year.

I suspect things may have improved in Russia since then, there is plenty of screwed up stuff but in my adult life I (and as far as I know my friends) had never been forced to bribe someone to accomplish something (passport, driving license, etc.), much less routinely do so. But then I was a small self-employed fish, and in fact due to my expectation of bribery I chose not to execute any business ideas in Russia. (Which so far seems not to have been a bad decision.)

It might also depend on where in Russia specifically. Moscow and Saint Petersburg are its own thing pretty much, so I can totally believe that things have improved there. But imo the further away you go from those two largest cities and the smaller the population is, the worse it would get.

I lived in a city of about half a million people about 800 miles east of Moscow (still in the European part of it though, not past-the-mountains regions), and it was definitely still the case there as of a few years ago (because my dad moved back there a while ago).

Not European part. I agree it matters where, but it does not seem to be so black and white that the country works on bribes anymore.

Perhaps that is why that foul regime enjoys popular support: people see is it not so awful anymore, but to consider it could have been even better is not acceptable.

This is important for Westerners to understand i.e. 'different rules' and that's material to the situation.

If Ikea did not bribe and failed to get approval perhaps it is part of the local culture of getting anything approved

Now if only people in the west would apply this same logic to their own communities.

Whole Foods isn't donating money to the private school that the children of some local politician to attend because of their belief in the school's mission. They're doing it because they want to redevelop a strip mall and a new soccer field costs less than anything that involves a courtroom.

I know you are trying to make an example of bribes, politicians, and private schooling, but honestly Whole Foods donating funds for a new playing field for a school and also redeveloping a strip mall instead of paying a bunch of attorneys to occupy space in a public courtroom sounds like... a win win win?

I don't necessarily disagree but I'm not 100% sold on the high wealth floor that's required to access western corruption being a good thing.

There is an important distinction in this law. Paying an official to do something he would have done anyway is not a bribe, even if in the absence of it they might have never "gotten around to it".

It's specifically things like this article alleges, kickbacks to officials involved in procurement decisions.

> I live in Kazakhstan and while I don't have any evidence, I'm pretty sure that many huge western companies operating here bribed officials.

If the country requires bribes to operate in, and the western companies are operating in that country, then you can just do some simple logic to derive that they are bribing people.

However, a lot of western companies will simply just form legitimate contracts with local companies that will then "fix" everything for them. Things get even murkier when the western company forms a join venture with a controlling share local company.

The irony is the bribes are, of course, a requirement to operate in the US as a large corporation, but here they’re laundered as “lobbying” and “campaign donations.”

It’s really not the same thing.

Bribery undermines the rule of law. Lobbying helps form it. The difference may seem subtle but it isn’t.

If you believe US lawmakers are taking bribes please provide evidence because that is a Big Deal.

If you believe lobbying is harmful to our democratic processes please present that argument directly.

> If you believe lobbying is harmful to our democratic processes please present that argument directly.

Not OP, but it is easy to understand how lobbying is too close to a quid pro quo scheme. If a politician receives donations in any form, in order to push for legislation that may benefit the donors, how is it any different from bribery?

The rule of law.

Subtlety matters. Calling lobbying bribery is apathy, which is uninteresting. Even worse, it’s ineffective.

> If a politician receives donations in any form, in order to push for legislation that may benefit the donors, how is it any different from bribery?

So, should I donate to a mayoral campaign that aligns with my beliefs? Is all money in politics evil, or is it just a matter of degrees? What if that mayoral candidate is a “political outsider” who relies on “grassroots support” to enable them to quit their job and focus on the campaign?

I’m an expert in my field. Should I inform my elected leaders on the nuances of that field when they write legislation that relates to it? Or should laws only be written by the ignorant? How ignorant should they be?

Trade is a quid pro quo scheme. Pretending all exchanges of value are the same is, again, uninteresting. How can such a position be engaged? And to what end?

Where’s the line between bribery and democracy?

It’s not easy to draw. Calling lobbying bribery is an apathetic oversimplification. It’s uninteresting and isn’t a position that can be engaged constructively.

> The rule of law.

Making it legal doesn’t make it moral or ethical.

Bribes aren’t necessarily illegal either.

> So, should I donate to a mayoral campaign that aligns with my beliefs?

There is a very clear distinction between donating and lobbying. Political donations are typically not driven to any specific end, whereas lobbying seeks to influence specific legislation.

Saying that lobbyists look to “inform” the “ignorant” legislators is naive and disregards the fact that congress and senate people have enough staff at their disposal to do the necessary research to pass legislation.

Lobbyists aren’t experts. They are marketers. It seems that to you, a lobbyist is an expert in a field, like a doctor is an expert in medicine. In reality, a lobbyist is more akin to a drug sales rep, a marketer. Do sales reps accurately inform doctors about drugs, or do they try to get them to prescribe a certain brand?

Lobbying is then legalised bribery. In fact, the US is one of the few developed countries where blatant private enterprise interference is allowed at all levels of government.

So there is a subtle difference. Take a commission for example. Sounds pretty similar to a bribe right? Difference is, bribe makes for a hostage / preferential treatment situation (give me something extra sweet or else no deal/guarantee), whereas a commission is a cut based upon a predetermined price that a salesmen can't really change (e.g. getting a 2% cut for every car you sell at some dealer). Salesmen can negotiate sell price to some extent, affecting their cut, but they can't make demands to the buyer to pay them an extra side deal first (otherwise, if he does, it's a bribe). The buyer, is free to give him an additional tip if he'd like, after the deal is done, but not if it was coerced prior by the seller.

As far as lobbying, there is still the same difference. If a politician said they would promise to personally do X for someone only if given Y dollars, it's a bribe. Instead, if a politician said they would do X if elected, and some random person heard this and liked their cause and so decided to donate them Y dollars, it's not a bribe, because the politician wasn't going to give preferential treatment due to the donation, and the donor wasn't coerced. And it works in reverse. If a donor said there will be extra X money if you do Y personally for me when elected, it's a bribe. See the difference now?

Don't for a second suggest that this is about 'foreign companies bribing their way into something'.

It's 100% powerful officials 'demanding kickbacks' for contracts and business - which is exactly 'the culture' that goes on in literally most of the world.

The comments here are (and I don't mean to be denigrating) naive.

Imagine that for all major contracts, say 10% will split between the buyer, possibly the 'local official' making the sale, possibly a 3rd party connection. It's been like that 'always'.

The only way this will change, is if local government require it to happen.

IKEA tried to hold out in Russia and they did for years. Until they caved paid the local mafia-ish guy his cut. And then Moscow got IKEAS. That's it. No cut, no IKEA.

IKEA does not bribe people in US, Canada, Germany. (or at least not in any systematic way)

Interesting fact: this used to be the case in Ukraine (IKEA negotiated for years and I believe publicly alleged corruption); yet finally in 2021 they opened the first small-format physical store. Knowing how things were actually improving lately makes the invasion doubly devastating...

It doesn't matter. For US persons and companies, it's always illegal.

Here's the official page: https://www.trade.gov/us-foreign-corrupt-practices-act

Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

And here's a detailed look at one particular project, a Trump project in Azerbaijan: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-...

Of course the US considers it illegal. But if you’re a Bulgarian executive running the Bulgarian subsidiary of a US company, they may do things closer to local custom despite US corporate directives. You’re demanding that foreigners extirpate their foreignness while they are employees of a US company. It’s not going to happen 100%.

By enforcing anti corruption on the parent company in the US, the parent company should in turn communicate and enforce their own anti corruption stance and policies on their foreign subsidiaries or branches. If there is no consequence for the parent company then the opposite might happen: extra money used for bribes is provided to the foreign subsidiaries with a wink; now the corruption is increasing.

You have to consider that local competitors and other foreign competitors may not have any issues with bribery, maybe they’re both from cultures where bribery is normal.

Now you’re asking a local executive to paddle up river while their competitors go down river.

Unless you have a somewhat leveled playing field it’ll be an uphill battle.

I believe there were espionage scandals in Europe by US intelligence where US companies were given confidential info on other negotiations —this was ab attempt to level the field in the face of what the US saw as unfair competition brought on by bribery.

Microsoft is more than big enough to not play the game. We are not talking some little company against a big one here, we are talking about a big company, if they don't pay bribes what is the country going to do, they have more to lose than Microsoft.

> By enforcing anti corruption on the parent company in the US

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?id=D...

Ooops.

Agreed that the US Supreme Court decision on the Citizens United case was terrible and we are suffering the consequences of an an alternate indirect form of bribery as you point out. But this is head and shoulders above direct bribery which we still thankfully classify as illegal. The US has room to improve but let’s not regress just because we’re not 100% of the way there.

I don't think I'm demanding anything. But what I would like is for US businesses not to encourage or reward corruption, which harms the citizenry and diminishes the sort of strong competition that makes markets work well.

I also think it's both ridiculous and insulting to suggest that corruption is some intrinsic property of Bulgarians and their "foreignness". Or anybody.

> While the actions go afoul of US law

LMAO, surely you jest! The US is one of the most corrupt societies in the world. Where else is it not only accepted practice, but enshrined in law with "money is speech".

Please see https://www.fec.gov/ (BWAWAAHAHAHHAH, this is an government website listing bribes... they don't even have to hide it!). See also, https://opensecrets.org/.

Money is speech. There is no way around it.

Even in the most unfree society in the world you can go in your shower and whisper anything you want. Nobody will know you said anything though so it won't do anything. To make a difference in a society as large as the US you need a lot of money to pay for things. You can print and mail flyers (money for paper, printing, and postage), you can take out ads on prime time TV... It all comes down to money is needed to make your message get someplace. There for limiting money is limiting speech.

If limiting money is limiting speech, why is Microsoft in trouble here, and why can't I bribe a cop to let me off the hook for speeding?

You know damn well that limiting speech is normal and accepted everywhere (eg. hate speech or crying "Fire!" in a theatre). But somehow, the rich have convinced Americans that their speech can't be limited. That their bribery ought to be legal.

I place strict scrutiny on limits to speech. I don't limit hate speech even though I disagree with it. Even fire is only limited to ways that cause a stampede

While working as an executive for eBay in Germany, the company made it totally clear on many occasions what illegal behaviour is and that they would take action. And the standards were the higher US standards not the lower German ones.

I work in government, and I remember a story told to me by a federal official who was involved in the arrest of a former member of congress for bribery. The official told me that, essentially what the congressman did was illegal under federal law, but it was what you had to do in order to "do business" in "those parts of the world."

I found that interesting. With what is going on today in the world, between nations committing human rights abuse and war, America still does business with them. Money exchanges hands, which furthers human rights abuses' and war because that's what our policymakers believe we needed to do to achieve our goals.

One is breaking the law to achieve a goal, but what is the other called?

While in India once, I ran into a friend from Google who was out there trying to build a data center. Total coincidence that we were both there at the same time. I was there to hire and train for another company and he was there to break ground. He'd been there for week and they'd yet to start doing more than some bare minimums related to surveys and permits. I was surprised that he was there at all, given the current state of construction.

It turns out, they were way off target and they thought there was more progress already. Every time he spoke to anyone about permits and approvals, they'd say it was almost done and then there would be a delay. Amazon and Microsoft had been building in the area already and they had started the process much later. The difference? Google has a very strict policy on bribes. If you pay one, you won't be reimbursed and if they do and out, you won't be employed any longer. Microsoft and Amazon had no such policy and the conversations my friend had with his counterparts at those companies were pretty forthcoming about it. It's just how business is done there and if you don't play ball, you will have a hard time.

Of course they paid. You have to. If you don't, things will happen eventually but that timeline is unpredictable. I'm sure Google found ways to ethically encourage progress eventually.

Meanwhile in America and the entire west to an extent, you have the government trying to "bribe" businesses to open in their jurisdiction through tax incentives and so forth.

Really interesting cultural difference.

It’s the lack of corruption.

In India the projects are blocked by individual officials seeking to line their pockets, they don’t care if that causes their area to lose out on the project.

I'm somewhat confused.

Here in America when you want to accomplish something like open a new facility you basically force the potential municipalities into competing with each other to win your favor.

A big company will go to all the Chambers of Commerce in a given area and basically say "we're considering opening a 100,000 Sq ft facility and hiring 300 people. What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?"

Then the towns will bend over backwards, gut their taxes, ease their planning zones, and basically contort everything they can to become the most appealing location.

Is it just cheaper to skip this step and bribe the city in other parts of the world? Why doesn't this practice work or take place overseas?

I'm originally from a small part of India, and the logic is quite simple. In your example, 300 jobs = 300 votes. But it would require millions in incentives to the company. But the local politician can just "buy" 300 votes with 300,000 INR (indian currency; 1000 rupees for 1 vote). So there is no point spending so much money on a facility when you can simply buy all the votes you need.

That is terrifying.

So is Microsoft literally buying and installing politicians in foreign governments?

Nah, only in the US.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?id=D...

Election money is important but the role it plays is somewhat different.

Politicians do often woo companies to come to their sate.

A job (particulary a well paying one) creates a lot of economic activity and can make that region prosperous. Politicians want this both for votes created due to prosperity but more importantly, once the region becomes rich, they have more money for their social schemes and freebies which is a prominent part of how they come to power. Not to speak of more bribes obtained in richer areas.

One issue in India is that local governance at level of cities and towns is very weak(very few know who the equivalent of the mayor of their city is). The state(as in say US states, not federal level) government basically runs the show.

So, the state government does woo corporations with incentives to come to their state, but once the company reaches the level of permissions and deals with local officials who are looking for a cut(and in general, it is hard to fire these officials), the companies have to face the bribes process.

You can transfer bureaucrats even if you cant fire them(and this does happen though sometimes for the wrong reasons). But the bribe network also involves local politicians.

The intractable issue is that the journey to power of the top leaders in the state government involves taking support of local level leaders who either have some local support base or money which can be used for campaigning. In return, these local leaders demand a cut of bribe money which the top leader is obliged to allow or else risk losing their support.

Of course, this is not an all encompassing explanation and some leaders are much worse(corrupt far beyond any political necessity) and some better.

> What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?". Then the towns will bend over backwards, gut their taxes, ease their planning zones, and basically contort everything they can to become the most appealing location.

I mean, that's basically a bribe too, we just don't call it a bribe when we do it on our side.

"Woah, woah, woah. You can't just hand government officials money! That's bribery! You have to do business within their specific jurisdiction and trade favours on the planning and setup of your business (favours none of your competitors or existing other business will receive) all on the promise of future increases in tax revenues in exchange, *that's* how you hand government officials money!"

Except they're not really close because in one case, the government is handing you tax payer money in exchange for potential growth and revenue for the city whereas in the other case you are paying a specific government official for personal gain.

“Here in America…”

Parts of the world that require bribes have nothing close to the governmental system of regulations and permitting that America does. It’s not that it’s cheaper, it’s that the system is so mismanaged and corrupt in its entirety, that the only way to achieve a goal without delays, cost overruns, sabotage, and violence, is to just pay the bribe..or else.

Yeah it's happened like that in local communities where I live. Big company says to city government "if you don't give us a big tax break we'll move our [headquarters|factory|operations|etc] to our branch in [that other town]".

More often than not the city relents and the tax breaks are enacted. No city officials are paid off, it's all about arm-twisting.

Seems to me this is a form of extortion not bribery. Of course extortion is no more ethical than bribery, but it's not illegal to use the threat to take one's business elsewhere. Call it "negotiating", it happens all the time.

I don't know but that's the way things are. Cultural shifts are difficult.

Bribes in India are so common, they made a website: https://ipaidabribe.com/

Corruption does terrible things to a society. I look at how Russia, Mexico, Greece and others were/are absolutely crippled by wide-spread, run-of-the-mill corruption at all levels of government. We have always been our best in the USA when corruption has been the least prevalent. The "legalized bribery" from campaign donations and regulatory capture, while not as bad as in those other countries, does not do our system justice.

US authorities don't investigate about MS (hopefully they will), but they use the extraterritoriality of US laws to sue foreign companies who corrupted in a foreign country. The French company Alstom (rolling stock and gas/nuke turbines manufacturer) was prosecuted for corruption… in Indonesia [1]. I'm all for fighting against corruption everywhere, but here it looks like the case was allegedly used to force to sell the power division to General Electric. These turbines are used by the nuclear plants in France, so they are quite critical and could have been used by the US authorities to negotiate something with France. I would have preferred if those guys were sued in France in the first place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom#Judicial_troubles

Why would anyone be shocked?

This is how business is done in most of the world.

If it's a 'standard practice' - then it is 'accounted for' and effectively part of the equation.

How else do you think think the states vast wealth trickles out to it's citizens?

The $10M Bribe to the Minister of Education goes t pay for the construction of his Mansion, staff, services.

What 'mostly matters' in these kinds of situations frankly is de facto transparency and efficacy.

If the ration are 'understood' and actually well-strutted, then there's a kind of de-facto transparency. In the case of a rich state like Qatar, it might actually be better than simply having nothing.

You could argue the 'lack of competitiveness' from MSFT bids given alternatives, but in many cases it really might not matter, the 'winner' was a fait-accompli anyhow.

When this is Nigeria, and the state is providing it's citizens with nothing, then it's much more of a problem.

I should also note that this is a function of the regional system, not MS.

MS is playing the game that's handed to them. Their alternative choice is to pull out of all of those markets, and hand them over to other businesses who operate that way.

The 'problem' should mostly be directed at state agencies setting up the system.

There should be more analysis and journalism on this kind of stuff, particularly because it does happen in countries wherein 'regular people' do end up paying the price, but the focus should on the agencies, not businesses who would otherwise play fairly.

This is a nuanced issue and we should not be 'shocked and horrified' by it, this almost implies a serious kind of naivte.

We need to recognise that it's complicated before just trying to 'blame MSFT'.

This is what life in an oligarchy is all about. Now, back to checking how much the S&P 500 is up today.

Meanwhile ... the SEC and DOJ are in a backroom meeting with Microsoft with their hands out for more bribes. :)

The same bribes/kickbacks are very big in government contracts. Not sure what the DoJ would do when they would up investigating themselves.

With one major difference: in Africa, in general in the third world countries, whom to bribe, how much to bribe, who is the intermediary who handles the bribes, etc--are common knowledge. In the developed word, that is secret--only accessible to the super wealthy.

The military industrial complex, and the intelligence communities are above the government. Investigations would never take place, unless they were fake and only to placate the public.

Lots of our dark foreign policy, is orchestrated through NGO's like the National Endowment for Democracy, where they then go on to do all kinds of illegal things in other countries. All is legal in the name of "national security".

To the extent the article gets anything wrong, it's the focus on just Microsoft. Microsoft is not some lone, bad actor here.

Who cares? Start with the one they have evidence on and move on to the next one.

You say that but that’s basically what happened with US v. Microsoft and they never moved onto the next. Apple is doing far worse with Safari on iOS and the DOJ refuses to apply the same standard.

This seems like reverse rule of “if you’re going to bring food, you have to bring enough for the whole class”.

Microsoft refused to pay lobbyist, now they do. AFAIK Apple never made that mistake.

No, Apple has a tiny lobbying operation and does not do corporate PAC contributions at all.

The real explanation is that Apple makes computers so they can legally control software however they want. When Microsoft got in trouble in the 1990s, they did not make computers, they were only a supplier. So they got in trouble for interfering with other suppliers. This is one reason Microsoft now makes and sells computers directly to consumers.

How would that qualify as getting something wrong?

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