As reported by The Age
In the list of the world's great companies, Unaoil is nowhere to be seen. But for the best part of the past two decades, the family business from Monaco has systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing many millions of dollars worth of bribes on behalf of corporate behemoths including Samsung, Rolls-Royce, Halliburton and Australia's own Leighton Holdings.
[...] How they make their money is simple. Oil-rich countries often suffer poor governance and high levels of corruption. Unaoil's business plan is to play on the fears of large Western companies that they cannot win contracts without its help.
[...] A massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft.
And you thought Microsoft's activity was widespread.
It's a detailed and fascinating article (the first of a promised three), but though it claims it's based on leaked e-mails and “documents”, it quotes none of them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday March 31 2016, @07:50AM
And it is, is it not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:00AM
I love this Microsoft comment .. "and we remain committed to the highest legal and ethical standards in every country where we do business.". So hypocritical it stinks trough the monitor..
More or less all large corporations will do these bad things as regular business. Some will do it really bad as well.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:20AM
It's not like is MS fault if the highest ethical standards in some countries are very low, is it?
(trollish grin)
(do I make a good MS apologist?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:44AM
to be fair, a bribe only works if the politician or government official takes it
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @04:36PM
Nah, they just found a match. Unlike at their home base where they have to pretend ;)
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Thursday March 31 2016, @11:43AM
so... if said countries you're doing business in have no legal and ethical standards, it's game on!
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday March 31 2016, @02:36PM
If the money finds its way into the hands of The Investors, then apparently so.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday April 01 2016, @01:27AM
That's what the OSI is for ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @04:27PM
It's more like large corporations have the resources to exploit everybody around them with great detailed specialized knowledge.
Like, they have a legal department. They don't hire lawyers when it's needed in the course of business.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:01AM
Often success is not determined by what you know... its who you know.
I have seen this one first hand.
One can always find someone else to do a job - today, globally ... but being the one who influences the decision-maker is financially very lucrative.
Look how much a lobbyist gets paid vs. some lowly unimportant resource such as an IT professional or an engineer - fields of study it takes decades to learn enough to be truly proficient at.
Ass kissing is quite lucrative if you can take the taste of shit.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:50AM
With that much money floating around the oil patch, monitored only by corrupt warlords and "kings", anyone who believed it was all above board would have to be naive.
What I would like to know is who leaked these documents, and is he still alive.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Thursday March 31 2016, @02:51PM
>What I would like to know is who leaked these documents, and is he still alive.
Sounds like a Shroedinger's cat situation. The answer to the second question depends on whether the first question is answered.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday March 31 2016, @05:25PM
True. Hadn't thought of that.
I'd settle for a less precise description, like A hacking, a stolen computer, a disgruntled insider, intentional government leak, or some such.
But the fact that none of these liberated documents were actually quoted or reprinted would seem to suggest that the actual source documents would take a lot of cleaning and redacting to prevent the actual source from being identified. Maybe even translation of the text would be required.
Its just odd none were cited in support of the extensive list of claims made.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:52AM
These hits do keep on coming on a regular basis. Is there any kind of breaking point that will be reached? It's a global problem, with a tiny, vampiric elite driving it all. Trouble is, if they were driving the entirety toward something laudable like world peace or ending world hunger, it would be somewhat redeemable. But they're not. They're subjecting and enslaving everyone and literally breaking the natural systems we all need to continue as a species (until we substantially colonize other worlds).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @12:55PM
Born yesterday? Read any history?
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday March 31 2016, @03:32PM
History? Why, yes. The Byzantine Empire collapsed thanks in no small part to corruption and treachery. Today, they are legendary for the sheer depth and breadth of their corruption. The very word "byzantine" means a maze of corrupt, stifling bureaucracy. It was actually part of their culture that cheating and reneging was perfectly acceptable on deals with enemies. In contrast, look at another leader from the Middle Ages, Louis IX of France. He was captured while crusading, negotiated a ransom, and paid it. He could have reneged, but he did not. He was a highly regarded monarch, canonized soon after death, and his conduct, his effective and fair governance, strengthened the French monarchy through strengthening the people's love of the system and himself.
The conqueror of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, itself slid into corruption and eventual collapse stemming from that. The Ottomans grew so corrupt that they could accomplish almost nothing. The Ottoman Empire was the "Sick Man of Europe." Any action whatsoever would be held up, held hostage to bribe after bribe. Despite their weakness, they hung on until the strains of WWI proved too much.
Every system has some dark corners. Because no system is perfect, some cheating can actually be good. Cheating softens overly harsh and unrealistic laws and taxes and exposes flaws. But it has to be limited. When cheating rises to such a height that it is no longer exceptional, the majority suffers harm, and cheaters go unpunished and the harms go unrecompensed, watch out, a revolution could break out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:10PM
When cheating rises to such a height that it is no longer exceptional, the majority suffers harm, and cheaters go unpunished and the harms go unrecompensed, watch out, a revolution could break out.
And that's exactly what the elites want to happen. Or don't you know that the George Soros, a rich Jewish hedge fund manager, is funding Black Lives Matter?
Here's a documentary for you about who fosters racial, sexual, and class division until the point of revolution. [youtube.com]
And here's one about the rise of Islam, which should make you think twice about the immigration backdoor. [youtube.com] Islam is currently using womb warfare and Hijrah (mass migration) against the west, as Muhammad did. There are some who want to see a second Ottoman empire rise. Turkey works with Islamic State to sell to Israel over half of the oil used by Israel. But why would Israel want to push for more Muslim immigrants (but only for European countries?) [pastebin.com] They think they can pit their enemies against each other and come out on top. The current driving force of todays politics is Europeans vs Islam and with Jews remaining insular (genetic testing for citizenship, a giant wall around Israel) meanwhile seeding suicidal polices to cause destruction on both sides.
As the second video I linked points out: Academia is bogus. The academia version of history is tainted by those who would ignore uncomfortable facts due to political correctness. The same fools think they have a grasp on modern politics, but this is impossible if you believe in PC propaganda and refuse to acknowledge the facts. What we really have is internationalists vs nationalists. Revolution does jack shit to the globalists who can migrate their monies anywhere in the world, it only fosters death and decay for national sovereignty (which is what the elite controlled EU policies do). This is why Trump is doing so well, he's a nationalist; This is why Merkel is destroying Germany; This is why a "brexit" is so hotly debated. If you think you can fix the problem of internationalist elites by eroding the foundation of your nation via "revolution", then you've learned nothing from history and are politically ignorant. Revolutions are for simple minded plebs. To win you must reform and innovate.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday April 01 2016, @01:48AM
Interesting post there. However, how do you reform, and then subsequently innovate? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense quite frankly, as I can view reforms as innovation in of itself. What were the reforms?
In any case, you assume that the *possibility* of reform exists at all. That could only happen if the game were fair, not rigged, and equally accessible to all actors regardless of power/information symmetries. It's not. The international elites control the system to such an extent, that innovation only occurs for *them*. Reforms would weaken their power base, and subsequently affect their vast holdings of wealth.
That's where innovation is. It was "innovating" to repeal Glass-Steagall, just as it was "innovating" to come up with ARM mortgages, and ever more "innovating" to securitize mortgages. The height of their innovation was removing all of the physical checks and balances to the transferring of real property, which required being publicly recorded, with a Wild West system of fire-and-forget digital transfers (that had a penchant for duplication of ownership instruments). Likewise, it was also impressively innovating when that genius MBA who runs Staples figured out that only giving a worker 29 hours allowed him to not pay any benefits. Although it's truly hard to say that the innovation provided by Kettering/Keyhoe with junk science that greatly influences politics was not the greatest for the international elites.
Innovation that will benefit the people will begin when we figure out how to most effectively kill all the international elites. Hence, a revolution by the "simple minded plebs", will lead to environment in which reforms and innovation can truly begin at all. Revolution and civil war are globally required to re-implement our respective Constitutions, begin reforms, and in general, a path to true healing and prosperity of our peoples.
That's what this Unaoil scandal tells me. Globally, our systems are wholly broken, and the system only exists itself to serve the needs of the international elites. Until they're no longer there, for whatever reason, we will not be able to live without crippling corruption, vast inequalities in wealth, power, and information.
Snowden, LIBOR, Unaoil, Wall Street (many different ones here), DuPont, etc. They all keep adding up. One after the other. I'm struggling to see where there isn't corruption. Do we have anything left we could consider pure, noble, and untouched?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:27PM
The Byzantine Empire collapsed thanks in no small part to corruption and treachery.
No, the Byzantine Empire collapsed because it was weakened with a long war with Persia, and the Black Plague which destroyed 1/3 of the people and economy. Then the Ottoman Empire invaded and subjugated the Byzantine empire under Islam. You're regurgitating rubbish that underestimates the corrosive power of Islam to any existing governmental system. It's not your fault that your history teachers were leftist apologists for Muslims, but you better wake up before you're forced to repeat that history because the same shit is happening today.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday March 31 2016, @05:02PM
Bread and circuses.... Bread and circuses, my friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t15U_MV4R5Y [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:30AM
Bribes and connections are simply how business gets done in these countries so global companies hamstrung by anti-bribery laws hire someone else to do the dirty work and don't ask questions. Some of the bribes mentioned here are peanuts, 10k/month, for multi-million dollar contracts. http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2016/the-bribe-factory/day-1/the-company-that-bribed-the-world.html [smh.com.au]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Thursday March 31 2016, @04:37PM
Ah yes, the good ol' business defense. And yes, that is as bad as it sounds! Actually, you make it seem worse!! Then try and play it off with 10k/month being peanuts, which in those countries is undoubtedly enough to feed 100 families...
~Tilting at windmills~