How could the world’s largest retailer have known about a massive systematic bribery scandal in its Mexican subsidiary, done nothing to correct or distance itself from the wrongdoer and covered up the matter for seven years?
The New York Times recently reported the alleged payoffs, totaling more than $24 million, helped Wal-Mart de Mexico keep adding new stores. About one-fifth of Wal-Mart’s 10,000 stores worldwide are in Mexico.
The Times reported that the current trouble began in September 2005, when a former executive at Wal-Mart de Mexico said he had handled briberies for the company for years but now wanted to blow the whistle. Wal-Mart found confirmation, but officials suppressed the matter until the newspaper’s expose, according to the Times.
Multiple ongoing investigations will involve top figures in the management of not only the Mexico subsidiary but also present and former leaders in Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Prosecutions by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission could lead to many millions of dollars in fines and possible jail terms.
Wal-Mart has apologized and neither denies nor excuses the reported misdeeds. It told the SEC in December that it was investigating possible violations of the corrupt practices law, but the Times said the company did so only after being informed that the newspaper was looking into the allegations.
What can the company do to help its reputation? It must engage disinterested outsiders to investigate the case and fire or discipline offenders. Yet even those measures cannot offset government prosecutions.
They are quick to put a common shoplifter through the ringer, so let’s give them the treatment.
The Wal-Mart business model is destructive to all that we hold dear. It drives down wages by always seeking out the hungriest workers and abandoning all who refuse to stoop that low. It pollutes our planet by seeking countries for manufacture that do not have environmental protections. It ruins our small town economies by undercutting prices to the point where no one can remain competitive. It forces its workers to accept terms that do not provide a decent living and then tells these workers how to leach off the state in order to make ends meet. They coerce towns and cities to give them massive tax breaks for building in those communities. And now we find that they don’t play fair either. I am proud to say that I have not set foot in a Wal-Mart for over a decade with the exception of when I need to avail myself of their facilities.
Yadayadayada….it wakes up the world to the ALL the issues you mention, and then some
the problem with your viewpoint is that you assume Wal-Mart will exist forever….it won’t and in the long run, it does a LOT more good than harm…..but of course, you’re a human, you’re life is so short, how could you possibly understand….
Wal-Mart does a LOT more HARM than GOOD. …when you include its impacts on EVERYONE worldwide; the Earth that sustains them, and not simply through the tunneled lens of the “consumer”.
Good old WalMart. They do have clean rest rooms. It is the only reason I would step foot in the place as well. They represent everything that is going wrong with America today. If you shop at ChinaMart, you are part of the problem.
We loved the reference to “ChinaMart”! Keep up the good thinking! If you only realized how much Wal-Mart deals with China to make them rich so the Chinese involved can drive around in their Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s!
All of that wealth created on the backs of Chinese people? The only Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s are driven by WalMart’s shareholders.
No town is forced to accept them. the promise of riches causes those that manage towns to let them in.
The EMPTY promises of riches, you mean…
And maybe a campaign contribution!
Wal-mart is set on profits, not people.
Easy …… it’s called make a buck, at any cost!
Walmart is very sorry—that it got caught.
Get mad at Wal-Mart but we keep electing the same government leaders that owe their souls to lobbyists all over washington DC. there is no difference between what companies do in Mexico vs what happend inDC everyday. Any difference is semantic.
Don’t forget that exposing Wal mart takes the focus off of politicians during an election year quite effectively. Politics as usual , smoke and mirrors !
“A corporation has neither a soul to damn nor body to kick.” ….and no moral sense to which your “How could you?” can appeal.
A corporation exists by virtue of a government-issued charter, for the purpose of serving the public good. Why we let them keep their charter privileges for low-wage jobs? How could WE?
You naive people, when you swim with sharks you don’t act like a clown fish.
It is impossible to understand unless you do business in a foreigin nation. In some places bribery is as commom as feeding the parking meters in Bangor. Most companies doing business in South America, the mid east, and China recognize the action taken by Walmart in Mexico as common business practice.
When in Rome.
Though there is no such thing as a “foreign” nation to this globalized monstrosity, Wal-Mart is a publicly traded company in the United States, existing only by virtue of government charter, and subject to U.S. law.
Our own SEC, hopefully, will reject the “common business practice” defense.
When in Rome…
I took a drive on the outskirts of Kiev Ukraine once. We were stopped at a checkpoint by armed security police. We could not proceed until a “tax” was paid. It felt like home without the paperwork.
What on Earth is your point? This is the United States of America… oh, wait… Maybe you’re in Arizona, or some other authoritarian red state?
It is impossible because the main headquarters gets summaries of all the accounting electronically and verified through hard files to back it up. They hold certified audits all the time. The schemes mentioned are under the table and into hands directly. Someone at the top at Wal-Mart knew of the predicament going for seven years and profited from the bribery scheme. Even the Fed’s wanted to know just how long this plan was going on, who was profiteering from it, and the South-of-the-Border players in the program were, too.
Doing business with Mexico is questionable at best under their current President, but things could change as hopeful presidential candidates are starting to work with the USA in controlling infrastructure crime, cabals, and especially their drug cartels and all they do inside Mexico and outside Mexico (including the USA).
Wal-Mart has suffered more than a black eye here; it suffers from a fractured jaw, some missing teeth and a very bad eye muscle problem. The wonder will be, just how many now will boycott Wal-Mart for this activity, and probably when all is said and done, will wonder if the Mexican source of the funds have successfully bribed Wal-Marts execs into transporting and trafficking drugs, too, under the guise of the nice name of “Wal-Mart”.
And the CEO of Wal Mart is “Eduardo Castro-Wright”? Hmmmmm…
“The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done — dare I say it — in the name of God,” ~John le Carre “…the shareholder is always the excuse.”