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cafeindy · 5 years ago

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Svendita Italia o propaganda fascista?

Riporto un intervento che ho scritto altrove alcuni mesi fa, su una falsità sparsa in rete circa delle aziende italiane. L’intento non è difendere delle aziende italiane, e ci mancherebbe per un blog indipendentista, quanto invece quella di smontare una retorica fascista sovranista, che addosserebbe ad una certa “sinistra” la causa di una svendita di alcuni ambasciatori del made in Italy.

La propaganda sovranista, o per meglio dire fascista, si accompagna sempre ad una serie di falsità che pervadono il discorso politico, inquinandolo con una retorica vittimista. Le manie di persecuzione sono all'ordine del giorno e viene incolpato il nemico del momento di cose che sono accadute anni prima che quel nemico esistesse, o gli vengono attribuite responsabilità laddove il nemico non ne ha mai avute.

In questo post non ho intenzione di difendere il Partito Democratico, del quale non sono mai stato elettore, e non ho intenzione nemmeno di glorificare il made in Italy. L'intento è invece quello di confutare un argomento che i fascisti tirano fuori di tanto in tanto: la vendita di colossi aziendali storici a compagnie estere sarebbe colpa di questo o quel governo che di volta in volta individuano come bersaglio. Oggi tocca al PD e domani magari no, ma sempre con questo stesso argomento infondato.

Andiamo con ordine:

Wind: non è mai stata completamente italiana, infatti Wind Telecomunicazioni nasce alla fine del 1997 grazie all'investimento di Enel, France Télécom e Deutsche Telekom; nel 2010 Veon Ltd. (precedentemente VimpelCom Ltd.) rileva Wind; Veon Ltd. è una multinazionale delle telecomunicazioni fondata a Mosca, registrata a Bermuda e con sede ad Amsterdam ed è controllata per il 47,9% dall'olandese LetterOne del magnate russo Mikhail Fridman e per il 19,7% dalla norvegese Telenor; Wind, attraverso la Veon Ltd., entra a far parte della joint venture di Hong Kong CK Hutchison nel 2015.

Telecom: nata pubblica col nome di SIP nel 1964, viene privatizzata nel 1997 sotto il Governo Prodi, e passa nel 1997 alla famiglia Agnelli; viene acquistata poi da Olivetti nel 1999 ma Bell, società con sede in Lussemburgo, il 22% delle azioni di Olivetti; nel 2001 Telecom passa a Olimpia Spa, società con partecipazione di Pirelli (al 60%), Edizione Holding dei Benetton, Banca Intesa e Unicredito Italiano; nel 2007 passa a Telco S.p.A., patto di controllo composto da Mediobanca, Generali, Intesa Sanpaolo, Sintonia e Telefónica (Spagna); nel 2016 il maggiore azionista di Telecom è Vivendi, società francese di telecomunicazioni; nel 2018 il ai vertici dell'azienda c'è l'Elliott Management Corporation, società statunitense di gestione degli investimenti, ma Vivendi (Francia) è ancora il maggio azionista con quasi il 24% delle azioni; Telecom ha ancora sede in Italia.

Stock: viene acquisita nel maggio del 1995 dalla Eckes A.G., società tedesca che produce e distribuisce alcolici e succhi di frutta; nel 2007 diventa proprietà del fondo americano "Oaktree Capital Management" e dal 2012 la produzione viene completamente delocalizzata nella Repubblica Ceca.

Sasso: nasce nel 1860 in Liguria; passa alla società spagnola Deoleo nel 2005, che acquisisce la Minerva Oli S.p.a., che possedeva il marchio Sasso.

Sanpellegrino: nasce nel 1899 e viene acquisita dalla Nestlé (Svizzera) nel 1997; la produzione è ancora in Italia.

Riso Scotti: nasce nel 1860 ed è ancora italiana, ma i capitali sono per il 40% della società Ebro Food (Spagna) dal 2016.

Benelli: nasce nel 1911 e viene comprata nel 2005 dalla Qianjiang Group (Cina); la produzione Benelli è ancora in Italia.

Parmalat: nasce nel 1961 ma dal 2011 è controllata dalla multinazionale francese Lactalis.

Star: nasce nel 1948; nel 2006, il 50% dell'azienda viene acquisita dal gruppo alimentare spagnolo Gallina Blanca del Gruppo Agrolimen (Catalogna).

Pomellato: nasce nel 1967 e nell'aprile 2013 l'azienda diventa della holding Kering (Francia).

Pernigotti: nasce nel 1868 e viene acquisita nel 2013 da Toksöz, società turca, che dal 2018 ha deciso di interrompere le attività dello storico stabilimento di Novi Ligure ma di non dismettere il marchio.

Consorzio del Vino Chianti Classico: nasce nel 1987, ma non è un'azienda ed il suo compito è disciplinare e tutelare il vino prodotto nella regione del Chianti Classico; è in Toscana.

Algida: nasce nel 1945 ed è stata comprata da Unilever (Regno Unito, Paesi Bassi) nel 1974.

Galbani: nasce nel 1882 e nel 1974 gli Invernizzi cedettero l'azienda a quattro finanziarie con sede nel Lussemburgo e nel Liechtenstein, con proprietari ignoti; nel 1989 fu acquisita da IFIL e BSN-Danone (Francia), che nel corso degli anni rilevò progressivamente l'intera azienda e infine viene acquisita da Lactalis (Francia) nel 2006.

FIAT Avio: fondata dalla FIAT nel 1916, è venduta nel 2003 a un consorzio formato per il 70% dal fondo americano The Carlyle Group e per il 30% da Finmeccanica S.p.A.

Ducati: nasce nel 1926, viene acquistata da Cagiva (Italia) nel 1985 e nel 1996 il Texas Pacific Group (USA) compra il 51% delle azioni e ne completa l'acquisto del restante 49% della Ducati nel 1998; nel 2006 il marchio Ducati è ritornato in mani italiane con l'acquisto da parte di Investindustrial Holdings e nel 2012 viene annunciata l'acquisizione di Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. da parte della Lamborghini Automobili S.p.A.

Bertolli: nasce nel 1865 ma viene acquisita nel 1993 dalla Fisvi (Società finanziaria lucana) per 310 miliardi di lire per conto del gruppo Unilever; nel 2008 Bertolli passa da Unilever a Deoleo (Spagna).

Carapelli: nasce nel 1893 ed entra a far parte di Sos Corporaciòn Alimentaria S.A. (Spagna), oggi Deoleo, nel 2006.

Perugina: nasce nel 1907; nel 1988 entra a far parte del gruppo svizzero Nestlé (Svizzera) assieme a Buitoni.

FIAT Ferroviaria: nata a Torino nel 1917 come "FIAT Sezione Materiale Ferroviario", cambia ragione sociale in "FIAT Ferroviaria Savigliano" nel 1975 e in "Fiat Ferroviaria" nel 1988; è infine venduta nel 2000 alla società francese Alstom, assumendo il nome "Alstom Ferroviaria".

Fendi: nasce nel 1925, è ancora un marchio italiano.

Eridania: nasce nel 1899; nel 2011 Cristal CO, società del gruppo cooperativo francese Cristal Union, secondo produttore di zucchero francese, entra in Eridania Italia con una quota del 49% nel capitale sociale.

Buitoni: l'attività inizia nel 1827 e nel 1988 il marchio viene acquisito, assieme a Perugina, da Nestlé.

Bottega Veneta: fondata nel 1966 a Vicenza, la società viene acquisita nel 2001 dal Gruppo Gucci, oggi parte della multinazionale francese Kering.

Antica Gelateria del Corso: inizia ad essere commercializzato come marchio dell'azienda Italgel nel 1980 e passa a Nestlé quando quest'ultima acquisisce Italgel nel 1993.

Locatelli: attiva dal 1860, è acquistata dalla Nestlé nel 1961 e infine da Lactalis nel 2008.

Gruppo Ferretti: nasce nel 1968 e produce la prima imbarcazione nel 1971; nel 2012 lo Shandong Heavy Industry Group-Weichai Group rileva il 58% delle azioni; nel 2016 Piero Ferrari, figlio di Enzo Ferrari, entra a far parte del gruppo Ferretti acquistando il 13,2% del capitale attraverso la holding di famiglia F Investments, risultando così l'unico azionista oltre ai cinesi del gruppo Weichai Power, detentori della maggioranza con l'86,8%.

Edison S.p.A.: attiva dal 1884, nel 2012 Électricité de France (EDF) ne ha acquisito il controllo esclusivo.

Fastweb: nasce nel 1999 e nel 2011 è acquistata dalla compagnia svizzera Swisscom.

Bulgari: società italiana fondata nel 1884, dal 2012 fa parte del gruppo francese LVMH.

Peroni: in attività dal 1846, il suo marchio è stato comprato dalla giapponese Asahi nel 2016, ma la produzione è ancora in Italia.

Gancia: nasce nel 1850 e l'azienda diventa proprietà della Russian Standard al 95% alla fine del luglio 2013.

Valentino: casa di alta moda fondata nel 1957, la casa di moda viene venduta nel 2012, insieme al marchio M Missoni, alla società Mayhoola for Investments del Qatar.

Miss Sixty / Energie: marchi creati nel 1991, cedono la branca asiatica del gruppo alla Trendy International nel 2000 ed il restante ad un fondo di investimento panasiatico, di nome Crescent HydePark, nel 2012.

Richard-Ginori: nasce nel 1735 ed è ufficialmente fallita nel gennaio 2013, ma è stata acquistata nel maggio 2013 dal gruppo Gucci, a sua volta controllato dalla società francese Kering.

Fiorucci: fondata nel 1967, è stata rilevata nel 1990 dalla Edwin International, società giapponese di abbigliamento con 8 marchi di proprietà e 6 in licenza (tra cui Lee, Wrangler e Avirex); nel 2014 i giapponesi della Edwin International cedono il marchio Fiorucci ad un'altra società giapponese, la Itochu Corporation.

Conclusioni Le manie di persecuzione della retorica fascista vorrebbero fare in modo che l'italiano medio corra ai ripari e possa armarsi contro questo o quel nemico esterno, che è identificato con un invisibile complotto internazionale ai danni dell'Italia e del “popolo italiano”, complotto che di volta in volta si manifesterebbe, ai loro occhi, con immigrati mandati da forze oscure che vorrebbero una sostituzione etnica, oppure con oppositori politici a cui si attribuisce un finanziamento estero o con acquisizione di aziende e di marchi italiani da parte di società estere, cosa che invece è normalissima nel gioco del capitalismo. Poi possiamo anche parlare di quali siano le contraddizioni in seno al capitalismo. In quest'ultimo caso della vendita delle aziende italiane, si vorrebbero addossare le colpe della dinamica capitalista (senza però definirla come tale) ad una qualche forza politica (in questo caso il PD) che, nella maggior parte dei casi menzionati, nemmeno era nata, e fa di questo falso argomento un classico delle argomentazioni in salsa fascista in difesa del Made in Italy e, per estensione, dell'Italia come categoria trascendentale, che colpiscono alla pancia del popolino lasciato senza strumenti per smascherare questa retorica. Il messaggio che i fascisti vogliono lanciare è chiaro: siamo sotto attacco, e l'acquisto di marchi italiani d'eccellenza sarebbe una dimostrazione, e la colpa di questo è dei comunisti. A cosa servirà dire che il Partito Democratico non è un emblema del comunismo? A cosa servirà dire che il comunismo intende scardinare i rapporti sociali creati dal capitalismo? A cosa servirà dire che, in ogni caso, il PD non fosse nemmeno nato quando molte aziende italiane menzionate sono state rilevate da società estere? A niente: quella è la versione che fa loro comodo per odiare, e se tu la smonti, i fascisti si gireranno dall'altra parte ed odieranno pure te. E facciamoci odiare, se questo implica aver ragione! Non erano loro che dicevano “molti nemici, molto onore”? Avendo avuto ragione, sarà un onore avere nemici.

#aziende #capitalismo #madeinitaly

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whitecollarcrimelawyersdall-blog · 5 years ago

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Best White Collar Crime Attorney In Fort Worth

WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

IN SPITE OF EFFORTS TO PUNISH ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, CRIMES LIKE SCAMS, BRIBERY, EMBEZZLEMENT, AND ALSO MONEY LAUNDERING ARE RAMPANT IN COMPANIES. WHAT TIPS CONTAINER LEADERS TAKE TO FIX THIS GROWING PROBLEM?

In the late summer of 2016 accusations that workers of Wells Fargo's retail banking device had opened greater than a million unapproved accounts and also marketed customers countless unnecessary products hit the national information. The scandal price Wells Fargo very much. On September 8 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (together with the Workplace of the Business Manager of the Currency as well as the City as well as Area of Los Angeles) fined the company $185 million-- as well as after revelations of even more consumer abuses came out, Wells Fargo would certainly later be fined an extra $1 billion and also pay out $575 million to resolve lawful cases. By the end of September, the financial institution's supply price had dropped 13%, lowering Wells Fargo's capitalization by some $20 billion, as well as it remained to stagnate while the marketplace rose. John Stumpf, who resigned as Chief Executive Officer that October, and Carrie Tolstedt, the head of the retail financial institution who had actually revealed her retired life that July, were compelled by the board to forfeit 10s of numerous dollars in pay. 4 of the system's senior managers were terminated for cause. Wells Fargo's reputation was left badly tarnished-- a humiliation for the 160-year-old institution.

Misconduct was widespread in the retail unit even though Wells Fargo had control and risk-management systems, which were overseen by its board of directors. So what went wrong? An investigation commissioned by the board found that a warped corporate culture, a decentralized organizational structure, and poor leadership were to blame. The postmortem revealed that much of the illegal behavior had been prompted by pressure to hit overly aggressive sales targets linked to bonuses and promotions. Management had received ample warning signs: From 2000 to 2004 the number of cases in which employees had gamed sales and compensation goals rose 10-fold, and critical articles that raised questions about the new accounts, the pressure on the sales force, and in creasing employee turnover had appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2011 and the Los Angeles Times in 2013. Yet leaders of the retail bank had blamed a few bad employees for the problems. Accustomed to deferring to the business units, Stumpf simply accepted that explanation.

Unfortunately, the Wells Fargo saga is not unique. Attorney Check -- such as fraud, embezzlement, bribery, and money laundering-- have destroyed enormous amounts of shareholder value at companies like Alstom, Odebrecht, Petrobras, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Telia, Teva Pharmaceutical, VimpelCom, and Volkswagen. In aggregate, the losses add up to billions of dollars. The legal penalties companies incur can be substantial: Siemens was hit with $1.6 billion in fines, Odebrecht $3.5 billion, and Volkswagen about $20 billion. And then there are the business costs: the time and energy that management must devote to cleaning up the mess and negotiating settlements rather than to beating rivals; the reputational damage; the impact on sales, profits, and stock price; declines in employee engagement and productivity; and increases in employee turnover. Research by the University of Washington's Jonathan Karpoff and others indicates that those costs swamp the legal penalties.

In response to high-profile cases and rising public concern, regulators in the United States and other countries have demanded that companies increase their efforts to deter wrongdoing. As a result, almost every multinational company now invests heavily in compliance and espouses zero tolerance of illegal behavior by employees. Yet in practice, increased regulation and controls alone do not guarantee that crimes are detected early or averted. Indeed, both anecdotal evidence and the data indicate that white-collar crime not only is still rampant but is actually rising. In a 2018 PwC survey, 49% of 7,228 organizations reported that they had experienced economic crime and fraud in the prior year-- up from 30% of organizations in a 2009 survey-- and that more than half the perpetrators were "internal actors." Meanwhile, stories about Attorney Check -- including allegations that Goldman Sachs employees were involved in a multibillion-dollar fraud in Malaysia, that Deutsche Bank helped clients transfer money from criminal activities to tax havens, and that Airbus engaged in corrupt contracting practices-- continue to abound in the media.

The root cause of the problem isn't ineffective regulations and compliance systems, however. It's weak leadership and flawed corporate culture.

Indeed, our research reveals that many of the firms hit by major scandals had controls similar to their peers' and, like Wells Fargo, had received early warning signs of impending problems. But at each of those companies, a culture of making the numbers at all costs trumped any concerns about how the targets were being met.

For the past 10 years we've studied white-collar crime and explored how companies can create an environment that discourages it. We used data from individual companies and from surveys by PwC, Transparency International (an NGO founded in 1993 to combat corruption), the World Bank, executive recruiting firms, and other organizations. All told we looked at data on thousands of organizations and individuals. In addition, we interviewed more than 50 senior and middle managers at 10 organizations that had experienced scandals. And in our research we've found time and again that while compliance systems are important, leadership plays a critical role in shaping an organization's attitudes toward preventing crime and its responses when wrongdoing is detected. Yet all too often, executives abdicate responsibility.

A culture of making the numbers trumped any concerns about how targets were met.

In our interviews we heard a common sentiment: Senior executives at most companies that suffered highly publicized transgressions didn't see these incidents as their personal responsibility to address or as evidence that something was fundamentally amiss in their organizations. Rather, those leaders viewed them as extremely rare occurrences caused by "a few bad apples" and insisted that they couldn't have been prevented. Although the leaders accepted the importance of investing in compliance systems and said they expected employees to act with integrity, they typically saw outperforming competitors and wowing investors-- not enforcing high legal and ethical standards-- as their priorities. Even worse, all too many leaders overlooked questionable business practices or were lenient toward members of their old-boy networks who were caught committing crimes. That indifference trickled down to employees. It encouraged them to develop a "check the box" mentality: to satisfy training and reporting requirements without internalizing the standards that compliance programs are supposed to instill.

Our research also shows that the leaders who are effective in combating illicit employee behavior are deeply involved in setting social norms at their firms and in managing the risk of misconduct. They do so by broadcasting a clear message that crime hurts everyone in the organization. They do not make exceptions when they punish perpetrators. They recruit and promote managers who value integrity, and they create decision-making processes that reduce the opportunity for illegal or unethical acts. Finally, they go the extra mile in making their transactions in corrupt countries transparent, are proactive when it comes to cleaning up their industry's dirty practices, and support societal institutions that empower corporate accountability and honest business behavior.

Send the Message That Crime Doesn't Pay In our work we made two startling discoveries: Business obtained through illicit means adds little or nothing to the bottom line, and people across the company-- not just the perpetrators, their supervisors, and the CEO-- suffer when a crime is exposed. Leaders need to understand this and spread the word throughout their organizations.

Illegally acquired business isn't very profitable. In public, leaders of multinationals state that their companies do not tolerate corruption. But many turn a blind eye when people in their organizations pay bribes-- either directly or through local partners-- in developing economies where anticorruption laws are weakly enforced. Their rationale: "We have no choice. If we don't pay bribes, we won't be able to compete in those markets and will suffer financially."

The facts paint quite a different picture. Two cases in point are Siemens and SNC-Lavalin, engineering and construction companies that in the past 12 years were separately charged with bribery. Senior executives at those firms told us that audits conducted afterward revealed that the profits on the transactions involving the illicit payments were unexpectedly low-- largely because of the substantial cost of the bribes (as much as 10% of the contract value).

Those companies' experiences appear to be the rule, not the exception. In our research we looked at the financials of 480 multinationals that had been rated by Transparency International in 2006 on the anticorruption systems and activities disclosed in their annual reports and on their websites. When we compared their performance from 2007 through 2010, controlling for industry, host country, stock market listing, and other relevant factors, we found that the firms with poor anticorruption ratings had 5% higher annual sales growth in weakly regulated regions than firms with good ratings did. However, the multinationals with poor ratings also saw lower profitability on their sales growth in weakly regulated regions than their highly rated peers did. The profitability differences were comparable in magnitude to the bribes typically paid in those regions.

The extra sales growth generated by illicitly obtained business also doesn't boost shareholder value-- even if the bribes go undetected. Using standard valuation models, we found that among poorly rated firms, the increase in shareholder value from additional sales in weakly regulated regions was offset by lower profitability. Of course, if corrupt practices come to light, a company's reputation will suffer and its stock price will take a hit. That is no small risk: When we examined the data from 2007 to 2010, we found that companies with poor anticorruption ratings had a 28% higher likelihood of having a scandal break in the media.

Don't Play Favorites To make it clear to everyone that they really mean it when they say illicit behavior will not be tolerated, leaders must respond decisively to crimes, dismissing and taking legal action against all perpetrators on a uniform basis. Yet anecdotal evidence and our research show that many leaders fail to do this.

Siemens permitted managers caught paying bribes in Italy to retire with full pensions, and it paid a $1.6 million settlement to the departing CFO responsible for overseeing the contract involved. The #MeToo movement's spotlight on harassment and assault faced by women has brought to light numerous cases in which corporate leaders, and in some cases boards, allowed senior male executives to remain in their jobs despite multiple allegations that they had abused female employees. And leaders of the Roman Catholic Church treated clergy accused of child molestation leniently, often by moving them to other parishes rather than expelling them or supporting their prosecution.

To examine whether that kind of permissiveness is pervasive in business, we analyzed the punishments companies gave to perpetrators of white-collar crimes. We used data from a PwC survey that asked firms about their experiences with crime in 2011, including data on the nature of the offenses, punishments, and main-perpetrator demographics. Of the 3,877 firms responding, 608 reported detecting white-collar crimes by employees that year. When we looked at the most serious crime each firm reported, we found that 42% of the main perpetrators had been dismissed or left the organization and faced legal action, 46% had been dismissed with no legal action, and 13% remained with the organization (with or without a transfer or warning). The low rate of legal action against the perpetrators most likely reflects the practical challenges of prosecuting white-collar criminals: Evidence that an individual committed an act doesn't suffice; there also has to be proof that he or she intended to commit it or had knowledge of wrongdoing. Given the potential penalties and reputational risks to companies, corporate attorneys often advise executives to quietly dismiss perpetrators without any legal action.

Treating perpetrators leniently, however, sends a message to potential offenders that crime pays or isn't risky, and it also damages the morale of honest employees. At several companies plagued by crime, the employees we interviewed expressed frustration over their leadership's unwillingness to remove senior managers accused of wrongdoing; the employees said it hurt morale and led some people to quit.

Another troubling finding of our research was the uneven pattern of punishment. Controlling for the type of crime and its magnitude, our analysis of the PwC data revealed that perpetrators who were junior managers or staff members were 24% more likely to face legal action and dismissal than perpetrators who were senior executives. Even when crimes were similar, senior executives were more likely to be given a warning or an internal transfer, and junior managers were more likely to be dismissed.

Undoubtedly, leaders are more reluctant to fire a senior executive because of his or her relationships with customers or the belief that the person's expertise will be difficult to replace. But our findings about how women are treated relative to men suggest that this is not the full story and that cronyism and favoritism are significant factors. Senior women, who are often seen as outsiders in informal male social networks and are less likely to have close personal relationships with the male decision makers who determine punishments, are disciplined more severely than senior men who've committed crimes of the same type and magnitude.

Most senior executives were given warnings; most junior managers were dismissed.

Companies operating in countries with greater workforce gender inequality (such as India, Turkey, Middle Eastern nations, Indonesia, and Italy) were also more likely to impose harsher punishments on senior women than on senior men. In addition, we found that punishments were harsher for senior women at firms that had a weaker commitment to internal controls and that failed to report crimes to regulators, thereby making it easier to respond to them inconsistently.

The obvious remedy is to create and religiously enforce a policy of punishing everyone equally. That's what Erik Osmundsen did at Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), a Norwegian waste management company. Soon after being appointed CEO, in 2012, he set out to eliminate widespread fraud, theft, and corruption at the firm. He created a set of values that included behaving like a responsible entrepreneur-- one who did not cut corners-- and being a team player within both the company and society. The values were translated into specific codes of conduct for each job, which every employee had to agree to follow. The company then implemented a four-week amnesty period, during which employees could confess any transgressions they had performed or witnessed. After that, nobody was forgiven for any infraction. Altogether about 170 operating and staff managers-- roughly half the total-- left the firm over the next 18 months. The vast majority chose to quit; a handful were fired. (See "We Were Coming Up Against Everything from Organized Crime to Angry Employees," HBR, July-- August 2019.).

Recruit Leaders with a Record of Integrity. To change the culture of a company plagued by systemic crime, you need to bring in new leaders with a reputation for honesty. If the industry itself is rife with corruption, it may be necessary to hire executives from other industries, who will have a different perspective and are likely to shake up the status quo.

Siemens replaced Klaus Kleinfeld, who had stepped down as CEO during the bribery investigation, with Peter Löscher, an executive from the pharmaceutical industry. One key factor in Löscher's appointment, cited in the press release (in a rare move for such announcements), was "his upright character." Recognizing the challenges in changing the culture at Siemens, Löscher brought in from the outside several senior managers whom he had worked with previously and who he knew had high integrity. They included Andreas Pohlmann as chief compliance officer and Peter Solmssen as general counsel and member of the management board. Both men, along with Barbara Kux, who came in as chief sustainability officer and member of the management board, played a critical role in developing a plan to address the problems at the company and reform its culture. (See "The CEO of Siemens on Using a Scandal to Drive Change," HBR, November 2012.).

Since NG's problems were endemic to the waste management industry, Osmundsen opted to recruit fresh blood from outside it (from building materials, aluminum, retail, oil and gas, and soft drink firms). He persuaded people to join NG with his vision of making it a model green company-- one that, by pursuing innovative approaches to waste management, could play a significant role in furthering environmental sustainability. In the short term, employee turnover hurt the company's financial performance. But within three years it had recovered financially and was well-positioned for more-profitable growth.

Require Employees to Make Tough Decisions in Groups. When Statoil, a Norwegian energy company (recently renamed Equinor), established a large market presence in Angola, its executives and board recognized that its employees would face pressure to pay bribes there. (Transparency International has ranked Angola one of the most corrupt countries.) To reduce the likelihood that they would succumb, the company's leaders ordered employees to make decisions in groups. This was a direct result of Statoil's experiences in Iran. In 2004 and 2006 the company agreed to pay fines in Norway and the United States, respectively, for bribing a government official to secure a contract in Iran (though the firm neither admitted nor denied guilt). A senior executive told us that one lesson from that scandal was that employees were much more likely to cut corners and do the wrong thing when they made calls on their own.

Making a tough decision in a group requires people to have open and honest discussions, and that doesn't happen automatically. Employees must have faith that other group members are committed to hearing and valuing their opinions and that the firm's leaders will support the group's decisions, even if they have adverse financial consequences. If leaders don't inspire that trust, simply relegating decisions to groups is unlikely to solve the problem. Research by our Harvard colleague Amy Edmondson has shown that it takes strong leadership to create a climate of psychological safety. Leaders must actively promote the behaviors they expect people throughout the organization to adopt-- by, for example, showing that it's OK to ask tough questions and express dissenting views, empowering frontline employees to speak frankly to their superiors about signs of potential trouble, being candid about the organization's past errors and openly discussing them, and acknowledging their own ignorance about a topic or area of expertise.

Champion Transparency. After Statoil's bribery charge, Helge Lund, its new CEO at the time, decided that the company would become one of the first firms in an extractive industry to publicly disclose the payments they made to foreign governments to gain access to countries' natural resources-- a practice that regulators and public interest groups had long advocated for. This decision sent a strong message to employees that the old ways of conducting business would no longer be tolerated.

Supporting institutions that investigate and report on corruption is another way that leaders can demonstrate to employees that they're serious about conducting business in an ethical fashion. The work of these organizations promotes fair competition and increases the public's confidence that business crimes are detected and punished; and to the extent that it reduces corruption, it stimulates economic development.

Statoil became one of the original members of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which aims to bring together companies, governments, and NGOs to reduce corruption in resource-rich countries and increase transparency about payments by oil, gas, and mining companies there. Over time participation in the initiative has steadily increased, and while early EITI reports provided aggregate information on company payments and country revenues, the latest frequently include detailed company disclosures of payments. Collective action appears to be moving things in the right direction: Our empirical research, analyzing data from 186 countries over more than 10 years, suggests that countries with EITI reporting have experienced a significant decrease in corruption, especially those that began with high levels of it.

At Siemens, Löscher and Solmssen reached out to competitors, governments, NGOs, and other stakeholder groups to make a case for broader reform. In 2009, as part of its settlement with the World Bank for its past misconduct, the company agreed to spend $100 million over 15 years to support organizations and projects fighting corruption through collective action, education, and training. By the end of 2017, it had made $73 million in grants for 55 projects. In addition, Siemens became a member of the World Economic Forum's Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), which includes 87 major companies.

Transparency International and the World Bank (which created a program to fight corruption in 1996) both are active in educating and informing companies and the public. These organizations support research on corruption and regularly rate countries on perceptions of the extent of their public-sector corruption.

Business leaders serious about combating crime can and should support journalists.

Another institution that plays an important role is the media. Smaller organizations that report on corruption are emerging beside the major news outlets. For example, the FCPA Blog publishes news, commentary, and research findings to help compliance professionals, business leaders, and others understand how anticorruption laws work, how corruption arises, and how it affects people and organizations. In Russia, Alexey Navalny operates RosPil, a nonprofit at which a small group of lawyers investigate and report on potential incidents of corruption. In India, Ramesh and Swati Ramanathan have created ipaidabribe.com to provide a platform for people to report incidents when they've been asked to pay a bribe.

Research by Aymo Brunetti of the University of Bern and Beatrice Weder of the Graduate Institute Geneva confirms what you would expect: A free press lowers corruption. But press freedom is under attack: Hostility toward the media is no longer limited to authoritarian countries; it has spread to democratic nations, where efforts to threaten and delegitimize the media are on the rise, according to Reporters Without Borders, an NGO that publishes the annual World Press Freedom Index. Business leaders serious about combating corruption can and should support journalists, by publicly recognizing their legitimacy and defending them when they come under attack.

CONCLUSION. In large organizations, mistakes will be made. The world is a messy place, and humans are imperfect. But by creating a culture that encourages employees to act ethically and legally, leaders can minimize the likelihood that a scandal will hit their company and increase its ability to bounce back from any illicit actions that do occur. To set the right tone, leaders have to model high standards in both their professional and personal lives.

All too many leaders still fail to continually stress the importance of organizational integrity. They either underinvest in compliance systems or have a check-the-box mentality toward risk management and delegate the responsibility to lawyers and accountants. Red flags go unheeded. When crimes are detected, they're dealt with quietly and unequally. These leaders justify their behavior by saying, "Corruption is an industry problem that we can not fix," "It's the way business is conducted in these countries," or "We can't afford to lose the business.".

In contrast, other leaders, many operating in high-risk countries or sketchy industries, set high standards and practice what they preach. They don't just install strong compliance systems; they also support training programs and performance-feedback and whistle-blowing systems; create an atmosphere where it's psychologically safe to speak up when something seems wrong; and engage their industry peers to fight corruption together. Our research indicates that organizations with such leaders don't pay a high financial price for their integrity. Although they may not grow as quickly as their less-scrupulous peers, their growth is more profitable.

Then there are the less widely discussed benefits. Many employees who have chosen to work at high-integrity companies in high-risk countries and industries have told us that they did so because of those firms' values. Some people even told us that they accepted lower pay from those employers. Such companies and their leaders have the respect of their customers, regulators, and communities. They are more likely to prosper and endure.

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23southofrussia · 7 years ago

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Я не против Билайна, но от спамеров я точно устал) Приходишь домой, а у тебя весь подъезд в рекламе, одну сорвали или на верх свою повесили. На прошлой недели были одни из Билайн, а сегодня другие. Уважаемая Компания Билайн, пожалуйста, хватит спамить и портить общедомовое имущество расклеивал свою рекламу! Лучше с интернетом и голосовой связью разберитесьв Краснодаре, а то не в какие ворота уже ✌ Спасибо за понимание #билайн #вымпелком #veon #спам #спамер #накипело #югроссии #SouthofRussia #мегафон #мтс #теле2 #beeline #megafon #tele2 #vimpelcom #sonera #orange #Chinamobile #verizon #at&t #vodafone #telefonica #kievstar #киевстар #telenor #tmobile #феникс (at Krasnodar)

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buy-online-foods · 7 years ago

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Area Sales Manager job - VimpelCom - Thatta

Area Sales Manager job – VimpelCom – Thatta

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algeriefocus-blog · 8 years ago

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Documents. Le mensonge de Vicenzo Nesci/ Les égyptiens et Sawiris sont encore actionnaires de Djezzy

New Post has been published on http://www.algerie-focus.com/2017/04/documents-mensonge-de-vicenzo-nesci-egyptiens-sawiris-actionnaires-de-djezzy/

Documents. Le mensonge de Vicenzo Nesci/ Les égyptiens et Sawiris sont encore actionnaires de Djezzy

Les Algériens croyaient tous que le scandale l’opérateur de téléphonie mobile Djezzy a été définitivement résolu en janvier 2015 lorsque le Fonds national d’investissement (FNI) prend le contrôle de 51 % du capital de cet opérateur en contrepartie de 2,6 milliards de dollars versés...

#Alger #Algerie #djezzy #Eygpte #Naguib Sawiris #Vimpelcom #Vincenzo Nesci #Eco-Business #Une

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sharewatch-com-blog · 8 years ago

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VimpelCom Posts Wider Q4 Loss From Cont. Ops.; Service Revenue Up 3% VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) reported that its fourth-quarter loss from continued operations widened to $273 million from a loss of $154 million, previous year. Operating profit decreased to $91 million from $166 million. Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.rttnews.com

#VimpelCom

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Leaked documents reveal Huawei’s secret operations to build North Korea’s wireless network

https://wapo.st/2JLjoPz

Leaked documents reveal Huawei’s secret operations to build North Korea’s wireless network

By Ellen Nakashima, Gerry Shih and John Hudson | Published July 22 at 6:54 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted July 22, 2019 |

Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese tech giant embroiled in President Trump’s trade war with China and blacklisted as a national security threat, secretly helped the North Korean government build and maintain the country’s commercial wireless network, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the arrangement.

Huawei partnered with a Chinese state-owned firm, Panda International Information Technology Co. Ltd., on a variety of projects there spanning at least eight years, according to past work orders, contracts and detailed spreadsheets taken from a database that charts the company’s telecom operations worldwide. The arrangement made it difficult to discern Huawei’s involvement.

The spreadsheets were provided to The Post by a former Huawei employee who considered the information to be of public interest. The former employee spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retribution. Two additional sets of documents were shared by others with a desire to see the material made public. They also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Taken together, the revelations raise questions about whether Huawei, which has used American technology in its components, violated U.S. export controls to furnish equipment to North Korea, where the isolated regime has faced extensive international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program and human rights abuses.

The Commerce Department, which declined to comment, has investigated alleged links between Huawei and North Korea since 2016 but has never publicly connected the two. Its probe remains active, however. Separately, the Justice Department has charged Huawei with bank fraud and violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The company has pleaded not guilty.

In a statement, Huawei said it “has no business presence” in North Korea. Spokesman Joe Kelly declined, however, to address detailed questions, including whether Huawei had conducted business there in the past, either directly or indirectly. He did not dispute the authenticity of documents shared with the company, though he also declined to verify them.

“Huawei is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including all export control and sanction laws and regulations” of the United Nations, United States and European Union, the statement says.

A spokeswoman for Panda Group, the state-owned parent company for Panda International, declined to comment.

Discovery of a link between North Korea and Huawei, whose activities, ambitions and suspected ties to the Chinese government have alarmed U.S. and European security officials, is likely to fuel even deeper suspicion among Western nations contemplating whether to ban the company, in full or in part, from their next-generation 5G wireless networks. It comes, too, at a particularly vulnerable moment for the Trump administration, which remains at odds with Beijing over trade, and as the president seeks to restart nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Just the fact that you’ve got a Huawei-North Korea connection is bound to raise political and diplomatic hackles in Washington, if nothing else,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department official focused on East Asia. “Just when you thought the U.S.-China relationship couldn’t get more complicated, and the U.S.-North Korea relationship couldn’t get more complicated, you have this instance of China and North Korea working together to enable Korea to make strides in an area of potentially sensitive technology.”

A current senior State Department official, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, summarized the administration’s frustration.

“All of this fits into a general concern we have about corporate responsibility and a company like Huawei that is not trustworthy because of its company culture and numerous incidents indicating a willingness to evade or outright violate laws,” the official said. “Working with regimes like North Korea, who deprive individuals on a regular basis of their basic human rights, raises concern.”

SECRET VISIT TO CHINA

Since its founding in 1987 by a former engineer with the People’s Liberation Army, Huawei has grown from a humble phone switch maker into an icon of China’s technological prowess — the world’s largest telecom equipment manufacturer. Today, it is a “national champion” promoted by Beijing and does business in more than 170 countries.

Before 2008, North Korea struggled to find multinational companies willing to build a 3G network in such a risky business environment. That ended with the creation of the wireless provider Koryolink, which emerged from a secret visit in 2006 by Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, to Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China.

“This was the time that confirmed not only the top leadership’s interest in dealing with Huawei but pretty much revealed a choice of Huawei as the primary supplier of technology,” said Alexandre Mansourov, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, who in 2011 wrote about North Korea’s digital transformation. “They decided to work with Huawei from that time on.”

Koryolink was built through a 2008 joint venture of Orascom Telecom Holding, an Egyptian firm, and the state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corp. Together, they were called CHEO Technology. Attempts to reach CHEO were unsuccessful.

A key player was Panda International, part of the storied electronics conglomerate Panda Group that has sometimes served China’s foreign policy. In 2001, for instance, during a visit to Havana, China’s president at the time, Jiang Zemin, gave Cuba 1 million Panda-made TV sets and introduced a company representative to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who “excitedly shook hands and embraced” him, the firm recounts on its website.

Huawei worked closely with Panda, using it as the conduit to provide North Korea with base stations, antennas and other equipment needed to launch Koryolink, internal documents show. For years, Huawei and Panda employees worked out of an inexpensive hotel near Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.

Huawei was involved in “network integration” and “software” services as well as at least one “expansion” project for Koryolink, the documents show. It also provided “managed service” and “network assurance” services. One current Huawei employee reached by The Post, Yin Chao, said he worked in 2012 and 2013 on Koryolink’s automated callback system, one of several improvements the company offered the North Koreans.

According to a 2008 contract, Panda would transport Huawei equipment to Dandong, a town in northeastern China known for cross-border trade. From there, it would be taken by rail into Pyongyang.

Internal documents show that Huawei has done business with a separate Chinese company, Dandong Kehua, which in November 2017 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for exporting and importing goods to and from North Korea — trade seen by U.S. officials as financing Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Dandong Kehua has not publicly addressed the sanctions.

It is unclear what role, if any, Dandong Kehua played in Huawei’s dealings with North Korea and whether Huawei has done business with the company since it was sanctioned. Attempts to contact the firm were unsuccessful.

COUNTRY ‘A9 ’

In internal company documents and among employees, Huawei referred to certain countries, such as North Korea, Iran and Syria, by code. North Korea, for instance, was listed as A9 in the project database.

“You’d run a query on the projects and you’d see Germany, United States, Mexico. Then instead of a country name, you’d see A5, A7, A9, and you’d say, ‘What’s that?’ ” said the former employee. “I assume it’s because they didn’t want to say ‘Iran’ or ‘Syria.’ ”

In a semiprivate online forum used by Huawei employees, one man reminisced last year about how he helped launch Koryolink in “A9” during the summer of 2008, before rushing back to China to offer tech support for the Beijing Olympics. In parentheses, the man wrote “chaoxian,” which means North Korea, in Roman letters — an apparent effort to avoid mentioning the country by name using Chinese characters.

Documents obtained by The Post also illustrate the North Koreans’ concern with foreign spying on regime officials and their family members who would be using Koryolink. In spring 2008, Orascom and Korea Post tasked Huawei with developing an encryption protocol for the network, noting that the government would create its own encryption algorithm, according to the documents.

“Both sides had common agreement that the ordinary people will use the international standard mobile phones and special users will use different mobile phones which will contain locally developed encrypted algorithm,” state the minutes of a 2008 meeting, a document signed by Korea Post’s chief engineer and an Orascom board member.

An encryption “test bed” was built by Huawei in Shenzhen, the documents show. According to two individuals familiar with the system, North Korea also intercepted and monitored all domestic and international calls.

The website 38 North, which closely tracks activity in and involving North Korea, detailed the arrangement in a post published Monday.

NORTH KOREA: ‘RADIOACTIVE ’

Orascom was bought in 2011 by a Russian company, Vimpelcom, which spun off Koryolink to a newly created subsidiary. That firm is now called Orascom Investment Holding, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The original joint venture agreement gave Orascom exclusive license to operate the mobile network through 2015, according to media reports, but the North Korean government launched a rival network, Kang Song, in 2013 using another Chinese telecom equipment supplier, ZTE. Kang Song quickly supplanted Koryolink as the dominant wireless provider in North Korea.

In 2014, the Commerce Department banned the export of U.S.-origin components to Panda, alleging it had furnished such parts to the Chinese military “and/or” to countries under U.S. sanctions. Since then, any company to provide Panda with telecom items intended for North Korea and containing at least 10 percent U.S.-origin content without a license would be in violation of the export ban.

Several experts, including the supply-chain analysis firm Interos, consider it to be likely that Huawei’s 3G equipment contained American components, though it is difficult to know whether it surpassed the 10-percent threshold outlined in export regulations.

Huawei was placed on the same Commerce Department blacklist in May, with officials citing the company’s alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Huawei has denied violating export controls with regards to Iran or that it poses a security threat, saying that the Trump administration is targeting it for political reasons.

Huawei and Panda vacated their offices in Pyongyang during the first half of 2016, according to people familiar with the matter. In that period, efforts to impose more stringent U.S. and U.N. sanctions against North Korea were gaining momentum. Orascom obtained a U.N. waiver to operate the Koryolink joint venture in September 2018. Koryolink, according to a person familiar with the matter, operates today on aging equipment as Huawei no longer provides upgrades and maintenance.

U.S. officials served Huawei with a subpoena in 2016, demanding information on the export of American technology to sanctioned countries, including North Korea. If Huawei was found to have violated U.S. sanctions against North Korea, it could face additional export-control sanctions, civil penalties, forfeitures or criminal prosecution.

“North Korea is radioactive in the proliferation world because of international sanctions,” said James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese economic espionage and general manager at the defense contractor SOS International. “Huawei wouldn’t want to be caught dealing directly with North Korea, so they work through other companies like Panda.”

The website for Panda International boasts of the company’s long-standing partnership with Huawei, collaboration that dates to 2007, it says — around the time of the Koryolink launch — spanning “various countries and product sectors.” Panda also notes that it is licensed by the Chinese government to “distribute foreign aid.”

A mobile telephone number listed on Panda’s website as its sales hotline was connected to a WeChat social media account selling Huawei products. The executive running the account, Andy Wang, declined to answer questions about its work in North Korea.

Panda’s headquarters in Beijing appears to be a bare-bones operation based out of a dingy commercial tower with a basement karaoke bar and a low-end nightclub. When a Post reporter visited one afternoon in July, the office was largely empty.

A Panda executive, who another employee said was responsible for media inquiries, refused to meet with the reporter and instead locked the office doors.

Shih reported from Beijing. Yuan Wang in Beijing, Heba Mahfouz in Cairo, Reed Albergotti in San Francisco and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

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