Siemens’ Business Model: Bribery

Bribery is clearly illegal and unethical. It hurts competition unfairly, sure.

What about bribery that circumvents a higher degree of something illegal by reimbursing clients to buy their products, like first year energy savings after slandering a competitor with false and misleading information.

Does bribery need a gain? What if some one set specs against a competitor requiring a minimum of 10 year's international experience on a money losing deal just to get the order.

And only god knows how a company lacking transparency embroiled in one of the largest fraud settlements on record, and certainly the very largest in their own country, might behave with government officials or in Brazil. Mexico, Russia etc., or in other countries let alone their own, in times of desperation or deceit. Surely their numbers would expose this if they were reliable of course. I can not fathom most companies hiding under silence or by delaying repairing accounting for several years to alleviate exposure on ethical conduct.

Who can trust a company that went so far as to pay a dual spy from China or provide a country with technology to spy on its own citizens, slander an ethical management painting him as a mad hatter who abruptly departs, or pay a premium for a CEO who defrauds a past contract on several written occasions that promotes than fires a criminally charged pal over a veteran. Would bribery be of any greater or lesser sin when they system extends the benefit of doubt after ultimatum.

My goodness, Siemens might seem like a choir boy relative to others following the corporate philosophy of “do it but don't get caught”, especially if they have high level contacts in their own country who can an reduce or eliminate penalty, print paper before loopholes are closed, and even stock manipulate legally with intent leading by example while stating optimism with a vested interest.

Is illegal bribery the worse of crimes that might thwart a home invasion on a massive scale. The perfect crime is never found, so what do we not know about by the least transparent companies in our private sector's bonusgates when or public sector has been involved with airbusgate and ad gate scandals. Then has these powerful ministers and members sitting on a board of directors.

God bless our moral majority that expose the tyranny that seems to take many forms above mere bribery. The tougher times get, the greater the corporate lies for theft statistics show, like they 1930's, and there is bad economic storm brewing once again.

guys, this is the real world. Do you think for a minute you would have any oil deals done without bribes? Just my guess, but how do you think NT won a $50+MM job in NIgeria, that place only works on bribes. Bribes is how the world works, do you think china is above giving bribes? Please give me a break, they pay off how they need and get the oil deals signed. THis is how it is working, the 3ed world is sick with corruption and the US, canada, UK etc… can't stop it.

So, now we know the new VP of Marketing & Communications at Nortel: Rich Tehrani (see my comment on ‘Q&A with Richard Lowe’).

Firstly, he bashes Siemens as if they are the ONLY ones to have ever done this (note: not condoning this type of behavior, period!). I refuse to believe that in their century-plus existence Nortel, Alcatel, Lucent, et al never used bribery as a convenient business tool. Court records show Nortel used very creative, Hollywood-type accounting during the same period to accomplish pretty much the same thing, which, of course, Mr. Tehrani did not address.

Secondly, he mentions Nortel as one of the potential ‘victims’, along with Alcatel and Avaya. Mentioning Nortel first, which is alphabetically behind both Alcatel and Avaya is a huge subliminal error by Mr. Tehrani. In poker it is known as a ‘tell’; where a player unwittingly projects a true position as opposed to the one he wants everyone to perceive. He then takes us on a joy ride pretending to ‘sympathize’ with the likes of Alcatel, Lucent, et al at the expense of Siemens of course. It is called mis/dis-information and it is so clever that Mr. Tehrani could have worked for the KGB (where it was originally developed in the early 60s).

However, in the end, he shows us yet another ‘tell’ where he mentions the interview w/Richard Lowe and makes the following giveaway statement: “He told me in the interview that Nortel has always been above board and fair – even though the competition wasn't. I didn't ask – but I should have: Was he referring to Siemens? And if he was and is implying Nortel doesn't bribe, then what other companies are bribing?”

It was at this time when I grabbed the barf bag; though I appreciated the effort to make Nortel look squeaky clean (e.g.: ‘implying Nortel doesn’t bribe’) the manner was sooooo amateurish, sooooo lame that it doesn’t even warrant a comment but I was bored. It qualifies as the worst ‘softball’ statement I have read in a long while.

So, guess what Mr. Tehrani will get from me as a Christmas gift: a can of Raid so he can use it on himself! (‘Stinking cockroaches’ – Al Pacino, Scarface).

Lastly, this wasn’t done without orchestration by some higher-up at Nortel. Well George, perhaps you are not MiA after all.

PS – Mr. Tehrani, during the same period that Siemens was using bribes all Nortel did was cooking the books. Quid pro quo? If you had been hired by Siemens you’d be writing about the ‘unfairness of Nortel’s accounting principles’. Btw, the can of Raid will be delivered by Elliot Spitzer; pls tip him, he needs the money…–bb

broadbandbill
I love you buddy
It's so good to see you posting again
All the attacks on you from the technical point of view upset me very much
I will tell you, Mark Evans (I assume ) prevented me from posting here for a while.
Lets see if he posts this one.
So we have Nortel's propaganda_disinformation in full force at Mark Evans blog. What about public and public perception, public prevention?
Who will defend an average Joe Shoe from investing in the biggest fraud ever, NT stock?
When I tried to post just the combination of publicly available info from last week, I was banned
lets see it again
Top Ten List
1. Pension deficit grew up to as high as $2.8 bill … And if it needed another problem, Nortel’s already underfunded pension (US$1.1-billion at the end of last year) may have more than US$500-million in liabilities tied to Metro Ethernet. But with roughly 53% of the US$8.1-billion plan invested in equities and assuming a decline of 40%, Mr. Sue noted that the deficit may swell to US$2.8-billion….Mark Sue report Target Zero!
2. Kris Thompson, an analyst with National Bank Financial, called the latest round of reductions “shallow.” (Nov10 Plan)

“We are disappointed with this employee reduction program,” he wrote in a research note. “We had modelled a reduction of 3,000 employees based on an employee productivity analysis we had earlier conducted against Nortel's peer group.” Nov 10 Thompson notes that, even under some optimistic scenarios for asset sales, Nortel's bonds, which are now trading around 50% of face value, would remain under water. That means his October forecast for the company's stock was too optimistic. “Debt analysis indicates zero shareholder value,” he says. –Andrea Orr Now 14
3. At least one analyst, Kris Thompson of National Bank Financial believes that even after selling MEN off for a rough sales price of US$875 wouldn't be enough to boost Nortel's bond levels back to healthy numbers. And that price of MEN is associated with $500 mill in related Pension Deficit
4. In a research report, “Nortel: January bankruptcy filing?”, Theodosopoulos said declaring bankruptcy in January “may make sense to maximize franchise value”, and allow the company to avoid an interest payment of $100-million to $120-million due on Jan. 15.
5. There’s an interesting article in the Wall St. Journal looking at why Nortel is exploring bankruptcy protection even though it has enough cash to last until 2010. The two big issues are access to debtor-in-possession financing, and the pension-fund deficit, which could climb as high as $2.6-billion from $1.1-billion at end of 2007.
6. Umiastowski said he believes more restructuring is necessary, and that $900-million in cuts are needed to give Nortel a “realistic shot” at having 10% operating margins…and.. “We believe that Nortel must either succeed in selling assets at reasonable prices, or face increasing risk of inevitable bankruptcy.”

7. The latest sign of trouble came Monday afternoon, when the Toronto company disclosed that, after a downgrade by Moody's, one of its subsidiaries had been forced to seek a 30-day waiver on up to $750-million (U.S.) of committed and uncommitted export financing provided by the federal government's Export Development Corp.
.
8. Nortel has been hit by a Moody's downgrade. Nortel's benchmark 10.75-per-cent bonds due in 2016 traded at just 16 cents on the dollar Tuesday morning, down from 20 cents a day earlier and 27.5 cents a week ago, according to data from TRACE,
9. On December 11, 2008, Nortel Networks Corporation (the “Company”) received notice from the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) that the Company has fallen below the continued listing standard regarding price criteria for capital or common stock under Section 802.01C of the NYSE's Listed Company Manual.
Section 802.01C requires that a company's common stock have a minimum average closing price of US$1.00 per share during a consecutive 30-day trading period. Under the NYSE's rules, the Company has six months from the date of the notice to bring its average common share price back above US$1.00.
10. New orders decline $500 mill a quarter and would reach $2 bill lower rev in 2009 or around $8.5 bill in total including MEN

Yes4aapl,

Thank you, I think . I am with the group that disagrees with censorship but respect Mark’s decision; after all, it is his blog.

The attacks on me do not bother me, they just fuel my passion even more. My critics may disagree with my style but cannot disagree with the substance; they know that I KNOW my stuff! And guys like Rich Tehrani, Michael Howard, Kevin Tolly and the rest that pretend to be ‘impartial’ are nothing more than hi-priced industry hookers that have ruined the industry I love and de-motivated the many talented engineers still out there plugging away. The Suits; they always ruin things for the rest of us. Happy Holidays…–bb