Walmart got it's yin-yang inna wringer once again

[waltky]

Walmart lookin' into it...

Watchdog: Mexican government must probe Wal-Mart
22 Apr.`12 — Mexico's federal government should investigate allegations of a vast bribery campaign by top executives of Wal-Mart's Mexican subsidiary to build stores across the country, the head of a watchdog group said Sunday.

Eduardo Bohorquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana, said international conventions obligate Mexico's government to get involved even though only local officials have been linked to the scandal. "The laws in Mexico and the United States relating to bribery are in effect, so the practices (of legal business) should be the same in both countries," he said. Government officials declined on Sunday to comment on the allegations contained in a New York Times report that said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. failed to notify law enforcement after its own investigators found evidence that millions of dollars in bribes had been paid in Mexico to spur the company's rapid expansion there.

In 2004, activist groups unsuccessfully sought to block Wal-Mart from building one of its discount Bodega Aurrera stores near the Teotihuacan pyramid site outside Mexico City, and one of the protest leaders charged Sunday that the permit process was rigged. "Wal-Mart started building without permits, the licenses came later," said Emma Ortega Moreno of the Civic Front for the Defense of the Teotihuacan Valley. "When there are banknotes, you know that they can work wonders. It's said that magicians don't exist, but in that sense, yes, there are magicians." A lawyer for Wal-Mart de Mexico, Juan Manuel Torres Landa, said the company had no comment on any of the allegations. Jose Luis Manjarrez, spokesman for the federal Attorney General's Office, said the agency had conducted no investigations on such matters and had no other comment.

One of every five Wal-Mart stores now is in Mexico and it is the country's largest private employer, with 209,000 employees. The Times said Wal-Mart shut down its internal investigation despite a report by the company's lead investigator that Mexican and U.S. laws likely were violated by executives of Wal-Mart de Mexico, its biggest foreign subsidiary. In recent years, the U.S. government has stepped up enforcement of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars U.S. companies from bribing foreign government officials or companies to secure or retain business.

Numerous corporations have been ensnared by the law, including Johnson & Johnson, which agreed last year to pay $70 million to settle charges that it bribed doctors in Europe and paid kickbacks to the Iraqi government. Avon Products Inc. fired its vice chairman in January as part of a long-running probe into allegations that bribes were paid in China. A former chief executive of engineering and construction firm KBR Inc. was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in February for bribing officials in Nigeria to win contracts.

Last month, Mexican authorities announced that they were investigating allegations that a U.S. aviation company paid bribes to secure contracts to maintain government aircraft. Mexico's Attorney General's Office said the probe involved six officials at two federal agencies and two state governments who allegedly took bribes from Oklahoma-based BizJet International Sales and Support Inc. in exchange of work contracts. Prosecutors said the case involved about $2 million in bribes for contracts worth at least $24 million. The office gave no other details, but the U.S. Department of Justice said BizJet had agreed to pay an $11.8 million fine to settle allegations its employees bribed government officials in Mexico and Panama to secure maintenance contracts.

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Wal-Mart investigates Mexico bribery allegation
22 April 2012 : Wal-Mart said it did not yet have a "full explanation of what happened"'.

US retail giant Wal-Mart says it is investigating allegations that its Mexican subsidiaries used bribes to secure permits to build new stores. Wal-Mart said it was deeply concerned about the allegations, published by the New York Times. Under US federal law, it is a crime for US corporations and their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials. The company said it took compliance with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act "very seriously". The article, published in Saturday's New York Times, also says that top Wal-Mart executives were made aware of the alleged bribery campaign and failed to root out the problem. The report quotes Sergio Cicero Zapata, an executive who had resigned from Wal-Mart Mexican subsidiary (Wal-Mart Mexico y Centroamerica) in 2004.

Mr Cicero reportedly told the New York Times he had helped organise pay-offs to local officials in exchange for help getting permits to build new Wal-Mart stores in Mexico. According to Mr Cicero, he alerted a senior Wal-Mart lawyer to these incidents in 2005. An internal investigation was launched, and uncovered a paper trail amounting to more than $24m in suspected bribery payments, the report says. The article says that the lead investigator recommended that Wal-Mart expand the investigation, but that company leaders shut it down instead. Walmart spokesman David Tovar said that many of the alleged activities in The New York Times article were "more than six years old", and that if the allegations were found to be true, "it is not a reflection of who we are or what we stand for".

According to the article, neither US nor Mexican law enforcement officials were notified and none of Wal-Mart Mexico y Centroamerica's leaders were disciplined. "Indeed, its chief executive, Eduardo Castro-Wright, identified by the former executive (Sergio Cicero Zapata) as the driving force behind years of bribery, was promoted to vice chairman of Wal-Mart in 2008," the article says. Wal-Mart Mexico y Centroamerica said it was "fully committed to complying with the laws of the countries where it operates, including any state or municipal regulations pertaining to the application for licenses and permits."

BBC News - Wal-Mart investigates Mexico bribery allegation

 

[alan1]

Yep, bribing foreigners is bad.
Much better to just pay fees, business license, property tax, community access tax, etc.