Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Continues to Get Away With Serious Crimes Very Cheaply

Capone Commits the Crimes, Pays Slush Funds



Summary: Microsoft keeps getting away with criminal behavior and nobody is properly punished for that large number of crimes (even when caught)

IT is not controversial to state that Microsoft is disliked for being a serial and chronic criminal, not just maker of shoddy products (which sometimes require crimes to actually sell). There's ample evidence and long history of that, with more SEC complaints in the pipeline about additional crimes.



Fernando Cassia brought to my attention this report about Microsoft crimes (we took note of that 3 days later, complaining that nobody was arrested and they do not actually tackle the injustice as no person is punished for the crimes). As one blog (Cassia's citation) put it back then:

Microsoft Corporation paid the DOJ and SEC $25.3 million Monday to settle FCPA offenses related to its operations in Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Turkey.

A Microsoft subsidiary in Hungary called Microsoft Magyarorszag Kft. paid a criminal penalty of $8.75 million and entered into a three-year non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corporation also disgorged $13.78 million to the SEC, plus prejudgment interest of $2.78 million.

Microsoft first disclosed the FCPA-related investigation in an SEC filing in July 2016, according to data from FCPA Tracker.

The SEC said Microsoft took remedial action and cooperated in the investigation. The company strengthened its internal accounting controls and compliance programs, took disciplinary action against four Microsoft Hungary employees, terminated four Hungarian licensing partners, and began using data analytics to help identify high-risk transactions, among other things.

In an internal administrative order (pdf), the SEC charged Microsoft Corporation with violating the FCPA’s books and records and internal accounting controls provisions.

In Hungary, Microsoft’s subsidiary won $13.7 million in business through “improper payments,” the SEC said.

From at least 2013 through 2015, the Hungary subsidiary paid government officials “through third party vendors, consultants, distributors and resellers, including in circumstances where there was no evidence of any services provided by the third parties.”

“Improper payments were also funded through excessive discounts that Microsoft’s senior executives in Hungary approved based on vague justifications without ensuring they were passed on to the end government customers,” the SEC said.


Of course nobody was arrested; they won't settle by sentencing them to 10 years in prison or something of that kind as there are far too many lobbyists ensuring that those culpable are essentially above the law. As Ryan put it in IRC some hours ago: "As long as they can just pass the costs of their bad behavior onto people who really didn't ask for Windows, it was just there... The EU fines were just cost of doing business."

Lack of personal accountability and punishment can certainly assure repetition, maybe in a more clandestine fashion.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
 
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year