Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

11 eds over 36 years, is big. Elite Deviance looks well worth it. A tiny solace is that it offers more detail into what we already
are aware of. Relative to size Australian corporations and government are into it easily as deep as the U.S., i'd guess.

Off the top two majors come to mind:

The AWB oil-for-wheat scandal (also known just as the AWB scandal) refers to the payment of kickbacks to the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Programme. AWB Limited is a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. For much of the 20th and early 21st century, it was an Australian Government entity operating a single desk regime over Australian wheat, meaning it had the sold ability to export Australian wheat, which it paid a single, fixed price for. In the mid-2000s, it was found to have been, through middlemen, paying kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in exchange for lucrative wheat contracts. This was in direct contradiction of United Nations Sanctions, and of Australian law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWB_oil-for-wheat_scandal

Securency and Note Printing Australia foreign bribery prosecutions finalised
Year 2018-2019
Location Victoria
On 27 November 2018, a former employee of a Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiary, Securency International Pty Ltd (Securency), pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe foreign public officials. As a result, the Supreme Court of Victoria lifted suppression orders that were sought in 2011 by the co-accused to protect their fair trials, permitting the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to advise the outcomes from Australia’s first foreign bribery prosecution.
P - In 2009, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) commenced an investigation into allegations of bribery of foreign public officials by Securency and Note Printing Australia Pty Ltd (NPA) and several employees and agents of the companies to obtain banknote contracts in Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia and Vietnam. Securency produces polymer substrate, upon which NPA prints banknotes.
Securency and NPA
In October 2011, Securency and NPA each pleaded guilty to three charges of conspiracy to commit foreign bribery. Securency’s offending occurred in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. NPA’s offending occurred in Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal. In July 2012, Securency was sentenced to fines totalling $480,000 and NPA was sentenced to fines totalling $450,000. The fines would have been more substantial were it not for both companies pleading guilty and undertaking to cooperate with the authorities in relation to the prosecutions of their employees and agents.
P - Securency and NPA cooperated in a proceeds of crime application that was brought as a result of the successful company prosecutions. The companies paid a combined total of $21,666,482 in pecuniary penalty orders. At the time of writing, the pecuniary penalties against NPA and Securency are the largest ever ordered.
https://www.cdpp.gov.au/case-reports/securency-and-note-printing-australia-foreign-bribery-prosecutions-finalised

This the first state biggie which popped in:

Four state scandals that show what a federal anti-corruption commission could uncover
Anne Davies @annefdavies
Sun 2 Oct 2022 06.00 AEDT
Last modified on Sun 2 Oct 2022 09.35 AEDT

Investigations by state anti-corruption watchdogs in NSW, Queensland and Victoria led to jail terms for (from left) Eddie Obeid, Moses Obeid and Ian Macdonald, who have appealed their convictions, and Paul Pisasale and Nino Napoli. Photograph: Composite/AAP
From Eddie Obeid to ‘Mr Ipswich’, state anti-corruption bodies have already shown how they can hold the powerful to account
Australia is finally getting a federal anti-corruption commission – many decades after state bodies were set up to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by their politicians and officials.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/02/four-state-scandals-that-show-what-a-federal-anti-corruption-commission-could-uncover

LOL Back to the Preview, at the mention of Florida 2000 i wandered for more detail. Knew
the result, the judge in the 5/4 no alternate recount method quickly enough was new to me:

The Florida Recount Of 2000: A Nightmare That Goes On Haunting
November 12, 20185:00 AM ET Ron Elving
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting

The some solace i mentioned above was simply the fact we do know so much criminal
bullshit goes on at the top. Oh one other more recent should mention here too:

Corporate Tax Avoidance: Rozvany’s Solution
"Tax fraud, trillion/y -- Oligarchs of the Treasure Islands
"hap0206, Your outfit again. PwC scandal: who’s guarding the guards? Nobody""
by Michael West | Jul 13, 2016 | Finance & Tax
[...]
In the real world therefore, we know there is a real problem. This is undeniable. The solution, however, is less clear.
George Rozvany, the veteran tax industry insider turned reformer who called this week for the break-up of the Big Four, says he has the silver bullet, a solution which “will largely eliminate international tax avoidance”.
P - Busting up the oligopoly is one step. The centrepiece however of Rozvany’s “five-point plan” is what he calls the “ethical tax regime”, a proposal which has drawn support from Second Commissioner at the Australian Tax Office, Andrew Mills, and from CPA Australia, one of the world’s largest accounting bodies. More on that to come.
The Ethical Tax Regime
Under George Rozvany’s ethical tax regime, large corporations would actually pay a lower rate of income tax if they were deemed by the Tax Office to be “ethical taxpayers”; say 25 per cent rather than the present rate of 30 per cent.
P - How to become an ethical taxpayer? Directors would simply present their “tax position” to the Tax Office, that is, their tax structures and strategy. Then, were these to be approved, they would be classified ethical. And once classified ethical, their “tax risk” would be eliminated.
P - Broadly, this “tax risk” has two elements: regulatory risk, that is, the risk the Tax Office will haul you through the courts as it is doing, for instance, with oil giant Chevron at the moment. The second is, as EY puts it, “reputation risk”.
[...]
Returning to the five-point plan; besides the ethical tax regime and the break-up of the Big Four along tax and audit lines, Rozvany advocates a second break-up to create 16 firms, and therefore bring greater competition.
P - His fourth recommendation is to enforce a regime of proper penalties for directors. At present, there is not enough incentive to comply with the tax laws as directors, who have the fiduciary duty to the company, are so rarely penalized.
P - Finally, all tax deductions on transactions which are associated with a tax haven – whether loans, royalties and intellectual property transactions, or service arrangements – should be denied.
2023 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172788495

That obviously involves all of us, including those Americans still riding the Trump the Terrible GOP express.

Thanks for the book reference.