I found this WJS article very interesting, its about a french telecommunication company called Alcatel- Lucent that admitted to do bribery. The company agreed to pay 137$ in penalties for the illicit payments done in several countries. The company earned about 48.1$ million by charging improper fees. Alcatel said it was going to pay 45$ million of those 48.1$ million to Securities & Exchange Commission. Another penalty of 92$ million to settle Justice department charges. They seem really serious in this matter, they already have the money set according to documents that have been found.
Subsidiaries of Alcatel earned 8$ million by dealing and bribing with other government officials to obtain good contracts and deals.
In the 1990’s Alcatel was persuading it business the most.
In addition, Alcatel also violated the law passed in 1977 about bribery and the record provisions of the FCPA.
Alcatel also had agents all over the world to have connection with the country and be able to do bribery and perform illegitimate work.
I think this is an unethical business and many people are willing to change from this company to another more ethic and more trusted.
In the other hand, this company changed all its management and terminate all its agents and consultants. For some people it may deserve another opportunity.
- Sapir
2 comments:
http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2010/12/27/alcatel-lucent-pays-137-million-to-settle-fcpa-probe/?KEYWORDS=telecommunication
This brings up an important ethical issue. You are correct that is is a huge problem and that you should not only be aware of companies with poor CSR and mostly likely should keep CSR in mind when making investment recommendations.
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