Hewlett-Packard Admits To International Bribery and Money Laundering Schemes 139
First time accepted submitter CP (1315157) writes "Hewlett-Packard has admitted to [bribery and money laundering] in order to profiteer off of lucrative government contracts in Russia, Poland, and Mexico, according to court documents. HP's guilty plea carries with it a $108 million penalty — a combination of SEC penalties, as well as criminal fines and forfeitures paid out to the Department of Justice. Thus far no criminal charges have been brought against American HP executives. The multi-agency investigation, which was conducted by multi-national law enforcement partners, the FBI, IRS, and SEC, has revealed kleptocracies in the three foreign governments and corruption and dishonesty among HP corporate fat cats."
No subject. (Score:5, Informative)
It's cool if you want to take part of the story for the summary, but you dropped out an important part.
The Original:
Hewlett-Packard has admitted to creating and using slush funds for bribes, money laundering, and clandestine “bag of cash” handoffs in order to profiteer off of lucrative government contracts in Russia, Poland, and Mexico, according to court documents.
Re:$108 million penalty (Score:5, Informative)
HP's annual revenue is on the order of $100Bn, so $108m is about 0.1% of their income. The median US household income is about $40,000, so this would be equivalent to you receiving a $40 fine.
For international bribery and money laundering.
Re:Corporations are not people (Score:5, Informative)
Really.
Has there ever been a single documented case in the whole of history where the shareholders have ever successfully (or even unsuccessfully, for that matter) sued a company because the company wasn't doing enougl illegal stuff to bolster profits?
Re:$108 million penalty (Score:2, Informative)
However, in this case "household income" is pretty equivalent to a corporation's revenue. When someone asks how much I make a year, I don't subtract all the money I spend and tell them how much I have left over.