Microsoft Whistleblower Claims He Was Fired for Exposing Corruption (protocol.com) 25
Former Microsoft Senior Director Yasser Elabd is working with whistleblowing agency Lioness to share information about kickbacks and bribery in the Middle East and North Africa. From a report: In June 2019, former Microsoft Senior Director Yasser Elabd traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney General's office to discuss his allegations that Microsoft was ignoring bribery at subsidiaries in the Middle East and Africa. The meetings lasted nearly the entire day. Federal agents asked Elabd questions for hours. Elabd's attorney told him that it was one of the first times they had witnessed the AG's office send a representative to a whistleblower meeting like his.
But more than a year later, the SEC still hadn't made a decision about Elabd's allegations. The agency kept promising him that the team in charge of his case would make a decision soon about whether they would bring charges against Microsoft. Finally, at the beginning of March 2022, the case agent in charge of Elabd's whistleblowing report told his lawyer that the SEC was closing the case because it didn't have the resources to conduct interviews and find documentation abroad during the coronavirus pandemic. So Elabd decided to try a different route to share what he knows. Today he published an essay on the whistleblowing website Lioness that accuses Microsoft of firing him after two decades with the company because he asked questions about what he saw as bribery within the contracting services Microsoft uses to sell software to government and public bodies in countries in the Middle East and Africa.
But more than a year later, the SEC still hadn't made a decision about Elabd's allegations. The agency kept promising him that the team in charge of his case would make a decision soon about whether they would bring charges against Microsoft. Finally, at the beginning of March 2022, the case agent in charge of Elabd's whistleblowing report told his lawyer that the SEC was closing the case because it didn't have the resources to conduct interviews and find documentation abroad during the coronavirus pandemic. So Elabd decided to try a different route to share what he knows. Today he published an essay on the whistleblowing website Lioness that accuses Microsoft of firing him after two decades with the company because he asked questions about what he saw as bribery within the contracting services Microsoft uses to sell software to government and public bodies in countries in the Middle East and Africa.
GLWT (Score:2)
Microsoft is part of PRISM and other spying programs. They're doing the government's work, they're not going to curtail that.
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Yep.
And everybody knows the price of doing business in some parts of the world.
Even if you get all your paperwork in order, the pen will be out of ink, the stamp will not work, and the official needs some "baksheesh" to get some tea. (or , or whatever the local equivalent is).
So, do you actually stick to your morals, and stop doing business in countries like Portugal? Or do you want to make more money? (Not singling out Portugal, just a random example).
Closed for Covid (Score:2)
What kind of personnel problems do they have at the SEC right now? And canthey really blame that on the pandemic by this point?
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The con artist cut their budget [bloomberg.com] so companies could more easily commit fraud and other crimes without being investigated. His being one of those companies.
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The SEC earns more in fees than it costs to run the agency. However, Congress refuses to let them be self funding, requiring the fees be paid in to the gov't and a budget allocated to the SEC. God forbid they be independent enough to do their job with Congress being able to yank the leash.
Self-funding will lead to massive abuse and waste (Score:2)
The SEC earns more in fees than it costs to run the agency. However, Congress refuses to let them be self funding, requiring the fees be paid in to the gov't and a budget allocated to the SEC. God forbid they be independent enough to do their job with Congress being able to yank the leash.
You do realize that budgets are basically a way to control groups, to focus their work on what you want.
Letting an agency self-fund is likely to lead to abuse. Consider the practice of letting law enforcement confiscate property. It started with good intentions like yours.
And then there is waste. There will be a crapload of unnecessary spending. We have to spend it or give it to Congress.
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Trump isn't president anymore by the way. The current admin reversed almost everything Trump did that wasn't law, they could change this too.
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Easier said than done. Because that money in the budget was used to give the billionaires huge tax cuts. Reversing those tax cuts is extremely difficult, because well, billionaires have resources the ordinary person doesn't have in fighting tooth and nail.
Plus, they also know the companies that will be pursued will be theirs, so they'll fight even harder to prevent los
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Tax cuts didn't lead to spending cuts.
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Biden could have restored that budget. Doesn't really answer my question, either. The IRS is understaffed, and this fact has been widely reported. This article is the first I've heard of anyone having any kind of staffing shortage at the SEC. And the SEC's problem in this case seems rather . . . specific.
I wonder (Score:2)
How many of those who protested so loudly at older folk regarding Microsoft as anything other than squeeky clean will be able to offer a meaningful response to this article.
As in, evidence the SEC could review to establish innocence.
My guess would be none. They might complain, as they did elsewhere on Slashdot, and they might troll, but the one thing they won't do is offer any substantive reason why the accusations might be false.
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As in, evidence the SEC could review to establish innocence.
It doesn't work that way. The SEC needs to find evidence to establish guilt.
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Sorry, it does. The SEC don't get to decide if someone is guilty, but they do get to decide who is prosecuted. They're not going to prosecute if they aren't confident the other party is guilty. Therefore if you don't want MS prosecuted, you must show that they are likely innocent. Which is what I said.
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Therefore if you don't want MS prosecuted, you must show that they are likely innocent.
So just prove a negative? That isn't logical. Nor is it legal.
In this country, the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove guilt, not on the accused to prove innocence.
The concept applies to everyone: murderers, rapists, child abusers... even Microsoft.
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Sorry, it does. The SEC don't get to decide if someone is guilty, but they do get to decide who is prosecuted. They're not going to prosecute if they aren't confident the other party is guilty. Therefore if you don't want MS prosecuted, you must show that they are likely innocent. Which is what I said.
Again, you are mistaken. The decision to prosecute is based upon evidence of likely guilt. Cases are routinely not prosecuted for a lack of evidence suggesting guilt. Suspects, like defendants, are PRESUMED innocent. The evidence has to suggest otherwise.
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It's also based on political motivation, to "make examples" or under political pressure to prosecute those they've protected until then.
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My guess would be none
Guesses about things where you've seen none of the evidence don't count for a lot.
any substantive reason why the accusations might be false
Luckily that's not how it works. If you accuse someone the burden is on your to prove, not on them to disprove.
is "contract services" 3rd parties? (Score:3)
If contracting services is 3rd parties providing services, then pretty much every corporation uses 3rd parties to get around liability in the US (not sure about EU). So it should not be a surprise that everyone doing business in countries that for the most part need bribes to function use 3rd parties that quietly take care of that ugliness that is not legal in the US/EU. And no one looks too hard to find what they know is going on. If the US-SEC/EU were to start enforcing this the underlying result of being held responsible for what a 3rd party company does, then the result would be that no US/EU company can do business in the 90% of the world where this behavior seems to be the normal way of doing business.
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If the mob boss tells his lackeys to "take care of it", just because he never bothered to ask exactly how they took care of the guy doesn't mean he's innocent.
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When covid is over "soon" (Score:2)
"The agency kept promising him that the team in charge of his case would make a decision soon about whether they would bring charges against Microsoft." Is that Blizzard "Soon"(tm) or Valve "Soon"(tm)?
The summary literally indicates that it is when covid is over "soon".