Associated Press
We talked back in April about a stunning Wal-Mart scandal, uncovered by the New York Times' David Barstow, who found evidence of the retail behemoth bribing public officials in Mexico. As it turns out, the larger controversy is sill unfolding.
Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda's alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town's bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda's field.
One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart's way.
After years of study, the town's elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town's main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs. Pineda's field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart's hopes.
But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavorable zoning decision.
The zoning map wouldn't be official until it was published in a government newspaper, so Wal-Mart apparently delivered a $52,000 bribe to a local bureaucrat who redrew the lines, changed the map in the company's favor, and then sent it to the newspaper. Locals were outraged by the store, but never knew about the bribe that made it happen.
Here in the U.S., it's been widely reported that a senior Wal-Mart lawyer learned about the company's campaign of bribery in virtually every corner of Mexico in 2005, and an internal investigation was launched. That is, until Wal-Mart executives squashed the probe a year later, before the extent of the scandal was clear.
So, the New York Times is doing what the company would not: getting to the bottom of the alleged, systemic Wal-Mart corruption in Mexico.
There may be some who believe that Mexican business practices somehow necessitate bribes, and that Wal-Mart was just going along with standard practices in the country. It may have simply been the price of doing business, the argument goes.
Except, this isn't even close to being true.
The Times's examination reveals that Wal-Mart de Mexico was not the reluctant victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of doing business. Nor did it pay bribes merely to speed up routine approvals. Rather, Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance -- public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals.
Through confidential Wal-Mart documents, The Times identified 19 store sites across Mexico that were the target of Wal-Mart de Mexico's bribes. The Times then matched information about specific bribes against permit records for each site. Clear patterns emerged. Over and over, for example, the dates of bribe payments coincided with dates when critical permits were issued. Again and again, the strictly forbidden became miraculously attainable.
Thanks to eight bribe payments totaling $341,000, for example, Wal-Mart built a Sam's Club in one of Mexico City's most densely populated neighborhoods, near the Basílica de Guadalupe, without a construction license, or an environmental permit, or an urban impact assessment, or even a traffic permit. Thanks to nine bribe payments totaling $765,000, Wal-Mart built a vast refrigerated distribution center in an environmentally fragile flood basin north of Mexico City, in an area where electricity was so scarce that many smaller developers were turned away.
A few quick thoughts. First, this is a fantastic piece of journalism. Kudos to the Times, Barstow, and everyone involved.
Second, Wal-Mart has made an effort to clean up its image in recent years, and this seems like another dramatic setback for the company. There is, after all, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits American companies or their subsidiaries from giving bribes to foreign officials. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have already begun investigations, and given the latest findings, it would appear Wal-Mart has a serious problem on its hands.
And finally, it's also worth mentioning that it's not just Mexico. Wal-Mart's internal investigations -- the ones that weren't quietly shuttered -- found evidence of alleged bribery in China, Brazil, and India, and some top company executives in those countries have already been forced from their jobs.
Leave a Comment:
Not that my typos are not prolific and quite stupid, but Squashed?
Really? Didn't you intend "Quashed"? Not that the looney tunes image is not amusing.
Wow, who'd have thought that you could get things by bribing officials in Mexico, of all places?
Now that WM has established this precedent, I suppose everyone will try it ...
I hope this shuts them down, I hate WalMart!
Why are we shocked that Walmart is immoral? Corporations are people, my friend!
But, unlike "people", Corporations just pay a paltry fine and go their merry way. Bribe on, Bribe on!
Welcome to the "ownership" society...you know where corporations Own society
The bigger question is. How can anyone be shocked that Wal-Mart does this at all? I mean this is Wal-Mart we are talking about. The same company who pretty much bullied, blackmailed their competition out of town or out of business, here in the US. The same company who has for years tried every underhanded trick in the book, to not pay people retirement or health insurance. Nothing is beneath Wal-Mart, and anything they do, should never shock you.
I'm not surprised that they do it. What would surprise me would be if they were punished or held accountable in any way. They are to use a recently coined phrase "To big to prosecute"
And the same company that is is most responsible for the rate at which manufacturing shifted from the U.S. to China in the 90s and the oughts. The company that explicitly told its suppliers to move manufacturing to China or else.
The thing about Walmart is that its executives have this image of the company as being the Bestest Most Wonderfulest Corporation in American and Therefore the World! in their heads. Its like they think they're the idealized image people had of Disney before Eisner or Hershey in the 50s or something. And that mentality is the moral cover they give themselves for all the stuff they do that makes them the corporate equivalent of a malignant tumor on the global economy.
Hillary Clinton sat on its board of directors for years also , for those so excited about her becoming president
What Walmart gets away with legally is almost as bad -- you know from the standpoint of morality -- as in moving into Chicago on the basis of filling 'food deserts'. Then once in, forgetting all that and moving straight into areas with established supermarkets that have union employees (or in other words, better pay and benefits) -- and then competing on a sort of race to the bottom.
Remember when having a job meant you didn't have to go on Welfare and Medicaid? Not since Walmart came into town.
I didn't need any more reasons to not shop at Wally World, but now I have another one anyway.
Glad to see even more of Wal-Mart's underbelly being exposed.
I'm not shocked, we're living in a time where the "corporate bottom line" is all that's cared about! Everything is a commodity to be bought & sold and it's just a matter of cost that's negotiable! WE have allowed and bought in to the immorality that is spreading like a cancer through out our nation from the top on down! WE allow the religuluous reich to silence US with talk about "G-d & morality", even as they believe in and promulgate their "Prosperity Gospel" to their "False G-d" dollar bill! Can't you smell the rot, the disease & decay! Everytime one of them use the buzz words of "freedom & liberty from tyranny" - when it is the corporate estate and their political prostitutes that have corrupted this nation!
At what point do WE say ENOUGH?! At what point can we NOT all see what is going on?! At what point do WE stop and realize that 1984 wasn't just a fiction novel it IS where WE are NOW?!? And at what point do WE come together and build a coalition to beat the barbarians back behind the gate - and demand our nation back for the benefit of US all?!?
And the reason we should not expect to find Walmart engaged in similar corrupt activities in the United States is . . . ?
Wal Mart to me is the symptom of all that is wrong with end-stage predatory capitalism. Why else would the Walton family's wealth equal that of the bottom 40% of all Americans' income?
(Best Jim Nabors)
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
I thought WalMart was a person now, shouldn't it be arrested?
Do you think it is just overseas that Walmart has problems?
Search google for "Walmart fined for" and you will find:
http://www.inquisitr.com/228956/walmart-fined-4-8-million-for-failure-to-pay-overtime/
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/21/walmart-fined-21-million-overcharging-customers/
http://library.thinkquest.org/trio/TTQ02189/wal_mart.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/10/walmart-fined-for-unaccep_n_1268475.html
http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=104051
http://www.hazmatship.com/articles/view/30781/major-enforcement-action-taken-by-phmsa-against-major-retailer
and there are a LOT more! I'm betting Walmart has been fined by just about every one of the ABC agencies of the Federal Government and MANY states!
And until those fines are serious numbers, they will continue to be fined because the fines cost less than whatever they did costs.
Fines are just a cost of doing business. When they start putting people in jail, things will change. They might fire a few scapegoats, but they were just the dummies that got caught or too dumb to know they were pawns.
Plastic pyramid souvenirs made in China, just what Mexicans need and the tourists want.
Most americans have blinders on , when it comes to imagining a place like mexico is MORE corrupt than the wall st culture of america , a product we export the most of by far , while the u s constitution and the idea of america is a wonderful brand , after the wal mart person-hood takes a big crap on it , people around the world probably wonder what is america really all about ?
There was a time when Walmart was under fire for forcing their workers to work off clock. Management defended itself by saying that it's rules strictly prohibited not paying workers for their time. But they forgot to mention that given the restrictions they put on their managers as to their payroll budget and the work they required, there was nothing else the managers could do but force people to work off clock or doctor their time card or something similar.
The same thing here. Head management in Arkansas says that they strictly forbid bribing officials, but at the same time, if their Mexican managers don't want to be fired, they have to bribe government officials. Then to top it off, when it looks like the biologically processed nutrition is going to contact the ventilatory device, they shut down the investigation in order to have plausible deniability.
There is an erroneous translation in the quoted section that refers to the Mexican government newspaper. The "Diario Oficial de la Federación" is not a newspaper of any kind. It is the Mexican government's equivalent of the "Federal Register" in the US. In other words, the Mexican congress enacts certain legislation, which does not go into effect until it is published in the "Diario Oficial de la Federación", Mexico's "Federal Register".
If you check U. S. Customs unit C-PACT, part of DHS, you will see that there is an agreement on the Internet (slide show) of what Walmart has to do to be under the supervision of this agency. It is the largest supplier and biggest partner and this happened because of fines. Working at Walmart for 11 months was sort of like trial by fire, cliches were established, behavior that went out in the early 1950's was encouraged, lots of good people work for little money and they must take on the creed of the bullies, the cliches, etc. to continue employment. Lots of very troublesome behavior is tolerated. I suppose the Feds could care less about labor laws. Gun sales are up at Walmart.
My guess, several people knew there were problems with this young man in Conn. Family for one knew. Who do you call? Someone called because their is a 10 year old girl in my sisters family that should be removed and put into foster care, they removed most of the stuffed animals in her room, the girls father stole my sisters gun, she bought another, he stole that gun also. I asked if she reported it, NO!!! I called the police,they said no judge would issue a warrant on hearsay . Guess what, my sister worked at a headstart.