From Echo Moskvy:
Major American corporation Cisco suspected of bribing Russian officials
Some information suggests that its representatives were paying discounts under the guise of big discounts.
One of the biggest international companies that sells networking equipment has been able to make billions of dollars working in Russia. Cisco is actively engaged with the Ministry of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission, who have begun an investigation into the possibility of corruption. US portal Buzzfeed, in turn, is publishing information from internal investigations that the corporation undertook itself. According to this information, representatives of the international sales giant involved in providing networking equipment, routers, and other technical devices to Russian companies and governmental bodies may have paid kickbacks to Russian officials, who may have received their bribes from resellers rather than Cisco itself. However, Russian employees of the corporation were aware of the payments and looked away while they were made. Two former Cisco employees told Buzzfeed that the kickbacks system in Russia was built on the basis of huge discounts to resellers who were well connected to officials who were Cisco’s eventual customers. As a rule, the discount was between 35 and 40%, but in some cases, reached almost as much 70%. After the sale was completed, the middlemen received part of this discount from Cisco, and transferred money into off-shore bank accounts. The owners of these bank accounts are unknown. According to journalists, Cisco took part in this scheme until 2011. This is despite the fact that a few years ago, the head office of the company sent special commission representatives to Moscow to investigate alarming signals of systemic corruption. According to the former employees of the corporation, in response, Russian managers just said that in Russia, everyone takes money for everything, and you can’t do business without it.
According to Forbes magazine, Cisco has approximately 20 large distributors in Russia.
Comments from Echo Moskvy:
inosven:
Rashka‘s Rashka. If you don’t grease a few palms, you don’t eat.
arye_03:
What?! Russian officials taking bribes? I don’t believe it!!! Impudent slander.
fireland:
Impossible. Russian officials are not for sale.
bosen48: (responding to above)
What I don’t believe is that the Americans were giving bribes. Someone who gives a bribe is just as guilty as one who takes it.
mikhail_sannikov: (responding to above)
= Whoever’s grabbed by the balls is just as guilty as the person who’s grabbed them. Well, well…
pavel72: (responding to above)
Let’s say the instigator is more guilty. But the instigator can just as well be on the giving side as the receiving.
mikhail_sannikov:
I don’t give a damn about Cisco’s earnings. But I DO give a damn about thieving from the public purse (and in particular MY taxes) by Russian officials.
beobachter:
Are the Russian prosecutor and the Investigative Committee really not interested in who took these bribes? Or are they scared of touching the system in case all the spinning plates come crashing down?
kaplan911:
The investigation will show what and how. But it’ll be water off a duck’s back for Russian bureaucrats.
tolay:
Is it perhaps Alexei Navalny that’s dug this up?
