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corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:49 am
by hogrot_Archive
they're not even trying to save face anymore

The New York Times wrote:In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: April 9, 2008

WASHINGTON — In 2005, federal authorities concluded that a Monsanto consultant had visited the home of an Indonesian official and, with the approval of a senior company executive, handed over an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The money was meant as a bribe to win looser environmental regulations for Monsanto’s cotton crops, according to a court document. Monsanto was also caught concealing the bribe with fake invoices.

Dennis Cook/Associated Press
John Ashcroft, left, with Timothy Dickinson, a lawyer who has served as a monitor in deferred prosecution agreements for the Justice Department, at a House hearing last month.

A few years earlier, in the age of Enron, these kinds of charges would probably have resulted in a criminal indictment. Instead, Monsanto was allowed to pay $1 million and avoid criminal prosecution by entering into a monitoring agreement with the Justice Department.

In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.

Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.

Firms have readily agreed to the deferred prosecutions, said Vikramaditya S. Khanna, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has studied their use, because “clearly it avoids a bigger headache for them.”

Some lawyers suggest that companies may be willing to take more risks because they know that, if they are caught, the chances of getting a deferred prosecution are good. “Some companies may bear the risk” of legally questionable business practices if they believe they can cut a deal to defer their prosecution indefinitely, Mr. Khanna said.

Legal experts say the tactic may have sent the wrong signal to corporations — the promise, in effect, of a get-out-of-jail-free card. The growing use of deferred prosecutions also suggests one road map the Justice Department might follow in the subprime mortgage investigations.

Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.

Defenders of deferred prosecutions say that they have been too harshly criticized lately and that they play a crucial role in allowing the government to secure the cooperation of a company while avoiding the time, expense and uncertainty of a trial. The agreements, government officials say, also avoid the type of companywide havoc seen most acutely in the case of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that was shuttered in 2002 after being indicted in the Enron scandal. The firm’s collapse threw 28,000 employees out of work.

At a Congressional hearing last month, Mr. Ashcroft defended the agreements, saying that they avoided “destroying entire corporations” through criminal indictments. “Prosecutors understand that a corporate indictment can be a corporate death sentence,” he said. “A deferred prosecution can avoid the catastrophic collateral consequences and costs that are associated with corporate conviction.”

Paul J. McNulty, a former deputy attorney general who put new guidelines in place in 2006 for corporate investigations at the Justice Department, said in an interview, “There’s a fundamental misapprehension with D.P.A.’s to think that they’re a break for the company.”

With the imposition of fines and an outside monitor, “the reality is that for the government, it gets pretty much everything without the difficulty of going forward with an indictment,” said Mr. McNulty, who is now in private practice. “I think companies are beginning to wonder whether they ought to fight more, because they are pretty burdensome.”

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:47 am
by Heeby Jeeby_Archive
are monsanto the same crowd that invented that 'milk yield' increasing drug that worked great except it fucked up the cows and people who were drinking the milk? then fox news sacked two reporters who wanted to air a story about it?

how that company is still allowed to do anything is beyond me.

indonesian corruption must be very backward. they should've called it lobbying and given gifts not cash. tut tut.

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:36 am
by ssakmule_Archive
remember seeing a documentary about monsanto wanting to patent & homogenize crops. It did not look like propaganda to me. There seemed to be enough evidence to backup the claims. One of the segments dealt with an old couple who decided to fight the lawsuit filed by monsanto .....because part of their crop was the result of seeds being accidentally blown on to their farm.

there is a link for a monsanto documentary on google video. I am not sure whether it's the same video that I saw (saw it long time back). Anyways, link below

The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:16 am
by Boombats_Archive
Basically, Monsanto gets caught handing out bribes to small government, then bribes big government to get away with it, then goes back to business as usual. The "fines" are nothing less than fat bribes. Our government can be bought by the highest bidder. Big surprise. Fucking useless politicians.

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:28 am
by FuzzBob_Archive
ssakmule wrote:remember seeing a documentary about monsanto wanting to patent & homogenize crops. It did not look like propaganda to me. There seemed to be enough evidence to backup the claims.


Plants are indeed patentable in the US now.

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:14 pm
by clocker bob_Archive
That's really good. It aired on French TV last month.
Image

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:24 pm
by hogrot_Archive
Monsanto is probably the most evil corporation out there.
Read Toxic Sludge is Good For You

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:34 pm
by newberry_Archive
The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see

What do you mean, "Americans won't ever see"?

ETA: I see that part is from the person who posted the movie at Google Video--never mind. Seems like a funny thing to say though...

corporate payola

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:48 pm
by ssakmule_Archive
blueberry wrote:What do you mean, "Americans won't ever see"?


blackberry also wrote wrote:ETA: I see that part is from the person who posted the movie at Google Video--never mind. Seems like a funny thing to say though...


i think cranberry wrote wrote:why the duck did you use that annoying font size?


sorry....the normal font looked too small...now this one is looking really beeegg..

& what's a bocce bowler?