Reading glasses what do they have to do with corporate Fraud?

Reading glasses what do they have to do with corporate fraud?

Well the answer is that in my previous life before I began selling reading glasses I advised on corporate fraud  and I have decided to publish one of my articles  to highlight the dangers of corporate fraud.

“The higher you go up the business ladder, the more likely you are to encounter corporate dishonesty.

The murky waters can soon engulf the unwary, warns criminal defence lawyer and reading glasses retailer Martin Cunningham.

Reading the corporate fraud Dilemma

It’s an everyday dilemma that all honest business people hope will never happen to them.

Someone with a position of power in an organisation that your company does business with takes you for a quiet drink and asks for a ‘backhander’.

Perhaps the request comes from someone who exercises control over a big contract.

The future jobs of half your workforce could rest on the successful outcome.

It becomes clear that the customer is not playing games.

He wants tens, even hundreds of thousands of pounds and suggests when, where and how he’d like paying.

What do you do?

The answer, in black and white terms, is that you must stick to ethical principles.

Obtaining money through deception is a crime and facilitating it makes you an accessory to crime.

This is one example of corporate fraud in action.

Reading glasses companies are not exempt from Corporate fraud.

Reading the problem can be difficult.

In some business sectors and overseas territories these standards and values simply don’t apply.

What is considered normal in UK corporate  business as a whole and many developed Western countries, may be exceptional elsewhere.

Let’s face it, in some parts of industry and many parts of the globe, including reading glasses companys illicit ‘commission’ and elaborate ‘gifts’ – or bribes – are an intrinsic part of the business and political scene.

I have known cases where expensive cars, watches, houses, boats and even funds to cover the cost of a divorce were quoted as the price of getting a smooth ride to contractual completion.

When this happens, it’s honest people with no experience of these matters who find it difficult to deal with the situation they find themselves in.

They know that if they get it wrong the contract, their own career or even their business is probably on the line.

If they succumb they’re acting illegally and risk having to face the consequences.

Trying to share the problem with trusted associates or colleagues is fraught with risks, too.

Trust can soon evaporate into a cloud of suspicion that is difficult, or impossible, to disperse.

Superiors have been known to advise middle-managers ‘don’t bring me problems – bring me solutions’ rather than risk being implicated in the mess or damage to the business.

Seeking help

One answer is to seek help from someone within your company.

Someone with a known talent for fixing such problems.

Someone with a suitably phlegmatic and worldly approach?

Perhaps he can talk face-to-face with someone at the highest level in the opposing camp and blow the whistle on the fraudster?

Unfortunately, there is no certainty that this will either salvage the contract or cause the offending head to roll.

Business life is not always that simple.

Corporate fraud and bribery

The personal shortcomings of financially productive people are sometimes conveniently overlooked,,

Especially in countries where able managers are hard and expensive to find.

There may be bigger fish to fry – or a different agenda.

Bribery is a very complex problem with significant legal, ethical and social implications.

With the probability of awkward taxation or money laundering questions being raised.

To make matters worse, in some parts of the world senior managers receive relatively poor pay.

This is on the explicit understanding that they will normally receive ‘consultancy fees’ from suppliers.

Usually paid into an off-shore trust or untraceable off-shore bank account.

Reading glasses corporate fraud and history of trade.

History of trade and commerce is littered with mechanisms to ‘express gratitude’ to those who have advanced the interests of a supplier.

At a legitimate level there are of course agency fees and sales commissions.

There are percentages and bonuses (not to mention gifts, entertainment and less tangible forms of corporate largesse).

However when the recipient is clearly in the customer’s employ, ‘gratitude’ reads ‘bribe’ to most western eyes.

When the purchaser happens to be an officer of a government or state institution it is even worse.

Deriving an illicit pecuniary advantage from the awarding of contracts strikes a blow at the very foundations of democracy, fairness and social responsibility.

But then, finding a continuous stream of orders to optimise assets and occupy a large, expensively trained workforce and satisfy shareholders in a competitive world involves heavy responsibilities, too, doesn’t it?

The bigger the sums involved, the more complex the issues become.

Second thoughts

Even the most honourable, hardworking and principled business people may have second thoughts when the contract in question has a string of noughts on the bottom line.

An additional margin may have been built into the original price structure to cover ‘unforeseen contingencies’.

To protect profitability, so no real damage would result from the additional ‘expenditure’.

This is another example of how reading corporate fraud can be difficult.

Home market corporate fraud

In the home market, it’s not unknown for influential buyers to have businesses, usually run by their spouses or relations.

They can exist solely to receive virtually untraceable favours, in the form of seemingly legitimate sales transactions.

The difficulty is always that such ‘fronts’ never compete fairly.

They exist to provide over-priced supplies that mask what are, in fact, corrupt transactions.

There are scores of such dodges and wheezes.

they can range from free holidays at the boss’s luxurious Marbella retreat to bars of gold bullion mysteriously finding their way into Swiss banks.

Ethical Crossroads

People who find themselves at the ethical crossroads can be divided into two camps.

The majority are well-intentioned, ambitious but slightly naïve owner-managers or executives.

Driven by the wish to see their business or career flourish – but who lack the moral rectitude to resist the rewards of a seemingly victimless white-collar crime.

They are the ones most likely to stumble and get caught.

Then there are the ‘doers’ whose ambition and greed has defined their ethical stance from the outset.

For them, corruption is just one of the ways things gets done in a tough world.

They’ve learnt how to be suspicious and cunning – and to cover their tracks.

Climbing the ladder

Everyone who wants to climb the ladder of business success will almost certainly reach an ethical crossroads at some point in his or her career so it’s a good idea to decide your philosophical position well in advance and prepare your response.

Many of my clients could be classed as sound, capable business people who’ve found themselves in this dilemma and hesitated to reflect on the full implications of the improper proposal put to them.

In the murky world of givers and takers, he who hesitates is presumed to be a soft touch. Vacillation is construed as acquiescence.

Wheels of corporate corruption

The wheels of corruption begin to turn almost before the unwary realise they’ve been entrapped.

Once this cycle has begun it’s doubly difficult to reverse it.

If you reject unethical approaches, you run the risk of the disappointed cheat accusing you of wrongdoing anyway – even though your hands are clean.

In either case, with careers, livelihoods, the completion of a contract or even the survival of a business in the balance, the most vigorous legal defence is appropriate.

In Britain, at least, you’re innocent of bribery and corruption until you’ve been found guilty in a court of law.

I hope the article Reading glasses corporate fraud has been of  interest and informative.

Martin Cunningham is a leading criminal lawyer and member of numerous recognised bodies and panels associated with fraud and fraud investigation.

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