I work for one of the investigative reporting teams that initially uncovered the bribe.

https://www.occrp.org/en/corruptistan/uzbekistan/gulnarakari...

Doing this type of journalism requires access to large amounts of documents and data, and we build custom tools for that. We're currently looking to hire both front-end and data engineering devs.

So if JavaScript and billion dollar bribes are your thing, please come help us!

* https://www.occrp.org/en/53-other/jobs-and-tenders/7015-fron...

* https://www.occrp.org/en/53-other/jobs-and-tenders/7016-inve...

jobs @ occrp.org

How do you get the data? I'm curious because there is a phenomenon here in Prague, Czech Republic, in which there are mostly empty restaurants and stores will obviously have no hope of making rent. Like if you calculate how many customers go inside each day, and you assume they all bought the most expensive item, the total revenue would be less than the cost of rent for the location. Cynical Czechs all say that these companies are fronts for laundering money, but would it be possible for me, as a normal civilian to get hold of documents which would prove that? I thought that the finances of private companies were more or less secrets.

whistle blower and other people working for such companies

So to recap, a Swedish telco bribed officials in Uzbekistan and the settlement goes to US and Dutch authorities, because the money was wired through New York bank(s)?

Granted, $1B is not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but shouldn't the money go to the Uzbeki people, who were the ones getting 'screwed'?

As for the Dutch part. The Dutch daughter companies paid the bribes, which is illegal under Dutch law and this is a settlement with the Dutch Public Prosecutor. Uzbekistan should separately recover that money from the Karimov family.

> Uzbekistan should separately recover that money from the Karimov family.

I'm not sure you appreciate the extent to which the Karimov family are the state of Uzbekistan.

Whenever I see these types of laws actually being applied, I wonder why the companies involved don't just outsource the payments to subsidiaries in jurisdictions that don't have (or don't enforce, which is most of them) such laws. Are there any specific legal barriers to that?

Dutch legal system is often chosen because you don't want to be a counterparty to an agreement in a shitty jurisdiction.

Typically companies worry more about their counterparty screwing (e.g. not delivering, delivering late, delivering low quality, or not paying, paying late or paying too little) them than the government.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Jurisdictions that turn a blind eye to bribery indicate strong levels of corruption, which means you're vulnerable to your contract not being honoured by your partner and being unable to enforce penalties.

Agreed it feels a bit weird, but how would you distribute the money directly to the Uzbeki people? I'd imagine if the government of Uzbekistan received the settlement, it would find its' way to Swiss bank accounts rather than the people of Uzbekistan

Yeah that's a tricky one. How about using the money to buy some of their sovereign debt, and then forgive that debt? Or probably even better, involve some NGO that already works in the region.

straw-man proposal: lottery. pick one citizen at random and give them all of the money.

If the money went to the Uzbeki people no one would enforce the law. The incentive for US/Dutch enforcement is that they get the fine dollars.

Wait, what? Surely government prosecutors aren't motivated by monetary gains?

It would just be a double bribe paid to the same people no?

Since I grew up in a country with lots of corruption, I'm personally a fan of laws that punish companies for bribes in other countries. It's not perfect, but funny enough, I do trust the law in (some) other countries more.

So the bribe wasn't for enough and wasn't the right people?

The bribe was for a rich and powerful family in Uzbekistan. The US and Dutch authorities didn't like that.

Telia is paying billions to US for conducting business in Uzbekistan in the only way it can be done.

please remember this next time EU fines Google.

If that is the only way business can be done in Uzbekistan then Telia had no business case in Uzbekistan. It's a no-brainer.

And if you are going to argue with China taking the business, well, let China do the bribery and take the business. The free, open economy will outperform closed corrupted systems in the long run.

With the minor caveat that the "free, open economy" (which is really neither free nor open, but I digress) contains strong incentives to prioritize growth and short term profits over other considerations. From the perspective of most shareholders, the only thing Telia did wrong was getting caught. I'm sure they'll do better next time.

Agreed. Add to that fines for any company / executives involved in US / countries that don't ignore corruption.

how are the situations at all comparable, and is anyone even trying to defend Telia here except you?

Google is being fined by EU for their business practices in EU.

Telia is being fined for their business practices in a third country.

Not defending anyone, but can't you see this is a dangerous path? What would happen if Saudi Arabia fined Coca Cola for an "indecent" commercial they televised in Delaware?

That's probably one of the risks of doing business in Saudi Arabia.

Doing business in EU or US is not risk-free either.

Can't read the article...

Even using a search engine link or private mode doesn't work for me. It asks for cookie consent, but seems to be tracking me before that already, which is illegal here (EU). Unless nobody can read this without a subscription...

A decent workaround for WSJ right now is facebook referrer. If you don't want to manually set the referrer, you can use this redirect link http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u={LINK_HERE}

flagged for the link i can not read.