U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

[D-Mack]

Daimler AG was charged on Tuesday with violating U.S. bribery laws for a decade by showering foreign officials with millions of dollars in payments and gifts of luxury cars in hopes of winning lucrative business deals.
Daimler plans to pay $185 million to settle charges by the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission while its German and Russian units plan to plead guilty to the criminal charges, a source familiar with the case said.
U.S. prosecutors accused the German automotive giant of engaging "in a long-standing practice of paying bribes" to secure deals in Russia, China, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, Iraq and at least 16 other countries between 1998 and early 2008, according to a criminal information filed in U.S. court.

http://sify.com/finance/u-s-charges-...yc4cbaajf.html

Have the payments stopped?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

Daimler AG was charged on Tuesday with violating U.S. bribery laws

First it's Lexus accelerators, now it's Daimler bribes.

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that Government Motors was engaging in dubious competitive tactics.

[flintlock]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

Or they could just be upholding the laws against bribery. Mercedes pleaded guilty after all. I can't say that GM does not do the same thing, but if foreign countries gain an unfair advantage I say stick it to them. Even the playing field. You wouldn't let one murderer go free just because they other didn't get prosecuted. I know you are implying that GM is getting some favored status from Uncle Sam. It wouldn't surprise me. But I'm not so sure this is like the Toyota thing. Do we give all foreign car makers a free pass in order to avoid accusations of favoritism? See why nationalizing companies is a bad idea? Conflicto de intrest.

[GRG55]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

The United States Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act is nothing to trifle with. I was bound by its provisions while working for a US multinational overseas, and the personal liability implications are substantial...and I am not a USA national.

However, the only reason the USA can enforce this extraterritorial application of its laws is because it puts the US domestic business of these foreign companies at risk. I know of some examples of overseas companies that deliberately will not have any assets or personnel in the USA and will only conduct USA related transactions outside the USA in part for this reason.

I do find it a bit ironic that Americans are the first to scream bloody murder any time there is a whiff that that their sovereignty might be influenced by any other nation [the "multilateralism" debate during the 'W' term is but one example], but I doubt there is another nation that so aggressively attempts to extend its legal system to ensnare non-USA companies and individuals in non-USA jurisdictions.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

I do find it a bit ironic that Americans are the first to scream bloody murder any time there is a whiff that that their sovereignty might be influenced by any other nation [the "multilateralism" debate during the 'W' term is but one example], but I doubt there is another nation that so aggressively attempts to extend its legal system to ensnare non-USA companies and individuals in non-USA jurisdictions.

A "bit ironic" is a slight understatement perhaps?

[aaron]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

First it's Lexus accelerators, now it's Daimler bribes.

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that Government Motors was engaging in dubious competitive tactics.

Cow, has it been a particularly bad week? You seem a bit more cynical in recent posts.

Let's look at it this way: Some bad guys have been caught and are going to jail/paying fines. This is a good thing.

Imagine the agents who must have been working this case for years prior to all of this. They just exposed some of the biggest companies in the world! Bravo. Hopefully their spouses will give them a pat on the back because nobody else will. We just need to multiply this by one thousand and we will clean out the system.

But, I agree, all indications are that the system will live on.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

Cow, has it been a particularly bad week? You seem a bit more cynical in recent posts.

My readings in such subjects as the JFK assassination, vaccines, the CIA, 9/11, AIDS, ponerology, and other subjects are proceeding quite well. I am gaining a coherent and integrated understanding of such matters. It has been a particularly good year . Understanding is the staff of life.

Let's look at it this way: Some bad guys have been caught and are going to jail/paying fines. This is a good thing.

When laws are properly limited in scope and applied fairly, this is a good thing.

When laws are overgrown beyond all human understanding and applied unequally or for fickle, corrupt or fraudulent ends, this is a bad thing.

See further GRG55's most recent post above. He explains it well.

[GRG55]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

Cow, has it been a particularly bad week? You seem a bit more cynical in recent posts.

Let's look at it this way: Some bad guys have been caught and are going to jail/paying fines. This is a good thing.

Imagine the agents who must have been working this case for years prior to all of this. They just exposed some of the biggest companies in the world! Bravo. Hopefully their spouses will give them a pat on the back because nobody else will. We just need to multiply this by one thousand and we will clean out the system.

But, I agree, all indications are that the system will live on.

Actually, we don't know that they did any such thing. You may well be correct...but we will never know.

The US government can destroy the business of even the largest and most reputable of international firms very, very quickly if one does not cooperate...just look at the number they are doing on Toyota...with officials publicly recommending consumers not drive any vehicles from that manufacturer. Companies will do almost anything to avoid that potential...and the US Department of Justice knows it...

The coercion level of these types of US laws is significant. It is almost always far, far cheaper to plead guilty and pay the fine than to fight the US government in court, even when one may be completely innocent.

Both sides prefer this type of outcome because the company avoids a protracted period of bad press, in the "guilty until proven innocent" US media, just because its been charged with something, and the prosecuting officials love it because they get a "win" without the trouble of having to make and defend their case in a public court of law.

[flintlock]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

I was a little confused why we were prosecuting foreign owned companies for bribing foreign companies.

[GRG55]

Re: U.S. charges Daimler with violating bribery laws

My readings in such subjects as the JFK assassination, vaccines, the CIA, 9/11, AIDS, ponerology, and other subjects are proceeding quite well. I am gaining a coherent and integrated understanding of such matters. It has been a particularly good year . Understanding is the staff of life.

When laws are properly limited in scope and applied fairly, this is a good thing.

When laws are overgrown beyond all human understanding and applied unequally or for fickle, corrupt or fraudulent ends, this is a bad thing.

See further GRG55's most recent post above. He explains it well.

The USA was never all that its reputation for "Freedom and Liberty" made it out to be. But that's not the point. It was legitimately the closest manifestation of those ideals...and the rest of us looked up to it. That is no longer the case.

Now we have a Congress that openly and repeatedly ignores the will of the people, the abomination of Homeland Security, the imposition of utterly useless and petty regulations [take off your belt and shoes before you go through the scanner] by officials that know they are immune from both accountability and any effective criticism [the latter bringing accusations of "unpatriotic"]...and this has permeated the country to the point that it often appears little better than some banana republic Latin American dictatorship.

The transition to a system of authority with no accountability to the people has been underway for quite some time, but it really accelerated under George Bush Jr. Some believe that 9/11 was the cause of the inflection, but I think it started before that...on the day that W "won" the nomination engineered by this father.

Here's an exchange I had with iTulip members Jim Nickerson and jk, and EJ from a couple of years back on this topic:

Sorry Jim; didn't mean to be cryptic. Egypt has a lot of similarities to Pakistan. No bomb, but some of the same strong-man/police-state issues along with an aging President, Hosni Mubarak, working hard to engineer a succession by his son Gamal, in an allegedly democratic republic, which isn't going down well with many of the 70 million or so Egyptians crammed into the Nile valley.

Like Pakistan, the military is the power center in the country, which has been ruled continuously by military leaders since Nassar's coup in '53 (Mubarak is the former head of the Air Force). Maintaining confidence in the army is vital since no one has any confidence in any of the political institutions. Even Egypt's official version of the October 1973 war, for public consumption, is structured around a "great victory" for the army based on it's early success in that failed attempt to oust the Israeli's from the Sinai Peninsula.

It's not as visibly unstable as Pakistan, but beneath the surface there's a lot of trouble brewing, kept in check by Mubarak's strong-man methods. Methods so brutal that they raised protest even from the USA over the treatment of opposition leader Ayman Nour after the 2005 Presidential election. Methods that include maintaining the official "state of emergency", and suspension of the right to trial, since Anwar Sadat's murder in 1981. All of this is not a sustainable situation.

Like Pakistan, Egypt is a US ally and receives considerable funding to prop up this regime. Recall that Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Al Zawahiri, used to head Egypt's Islamic Group, responsible for a number of political and civilian assassinations, including attempts on Mubarak, before merging it into Al Qaeda.

A successful terrorist attack on a Saudi oil installation or terminal would, at most, disrupt the flow of some oil for a few weeks or perhaps a month or two. A revolution in Saudi Arabia, that displaces the Al Saud family from power, would be met with a coordinated effort by much of the rest of the world to contain the effects on oil supply, as the loss of that supply would be a problem for many countries, not just the USA.

The really big problems always seem to come from unexpected sources. While Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan have been hogging the headlines from the Middle East for years, it's chaotic Pakistan, not Iran, that already has nuclear weapon capability and it's Egypt, not Iraq, that poses a great risk of change to a regime inimitably hostile to western interests in a populous Islamic nation.

After I posted this a thought crossed my mind. Bush Sr. was also a military aviator who helped engineer, in a democratic republic, the succession to the Presidency of one of his sons. Which I recall, right from the outset, didn't go down well with a lot of voters in that country.

Maintaining confidence in the military seems to be quite important as confidence in many of the political institutions, like the Administration and Congress, seems to be waning rather rapidly. The official version of the current war, for public consumption, is structured around "mission accomplished" based on the early success over Saddam's Republican Guard.

Although the opposition Presidential candidate wasn't tossed in jail, the election, hanging chads and all, ended up in the courts. And don't Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, and Guantanamo have some disturbing similarities to a perpetual "state of emergency"?

Just a thought... :rolleyes:

if hilary is elected for 2 terms, by 2016 we'll have had 28 years of a bush or a clinton as president.

Thanks. Now you're making me nervous, and that's not easy.

The rise of a military class in the US is a topic I've touched on, as the political and economic implications are profound. Not only is the military beginning to stand out as the most competent US government organization, in the absence of a draft it is also developing into an economic class and important voting block, as well, that is starting to flex some muscle.

I noted for example in Recession without Romance (Nov. 21, 2007):

Pentagon Warns of Civilian Layoffs If Congress Delays War Funding
Nov. 21, 2007 (Jonathan Weisman and Ann Scott Tyson - Washington Post)

Democrats Are Firm on Link to Troop Withdrawals From Iraq

The Defense Department warned yesterday that as many as 200,000 contractors and civilian employees will begin receiving layoff warnings by Christmas unless Congress acts on President Bush's $196 billion war request, but senior Democrats said no war funds will be approved until Bush accepts a shift in his Iraq policy.

Here's what happened:

County to get $60 million from U.S. budget

Up until the end, Bush had threatened to veto the bill if military funding came with strings attached. Democrats had tried to include conditional funds that tied war funding to eventual military withdrawals from countries.

Though the stipulations passed the House on Dec. 17, the Senate voted not to place conditions on the $70 billion in military funding for Iraq and Afghanistan when the final bill passed two days later.

The threat appears to have worked; the Pentagon got its money on Dec. 19 when Congress signed the $555B budget into law.

Tying military funding to the economy going into an election year is more Argentina than USA, but there it is, and is as clear a recent example as any I can provide of the political nature of inflation.