“Managers at Apple supplier Foxconn have been arrested on charges that they demanded kickbacks from iPhone component makers, Chinese news site Tencent said Wednesday,” Lance Whitney reports for CNET.
“Interpreting Tencent‘s story, CNET sister site ZDNet said that around a dozen managers have been taken into custody,” Whitney reports. “Prosecutors allege that companies that wanted to qualify as iPhone component suppliers had to pay the managers kickbacks and then further bribe them to make sure their orders went through.”
Whitney reports, “The scheme itself allegedly surfaced when suppliers complained to Foxconn, triggering an internal investigation and the subsequent filing of a police report.”
Read more in the full article here.
I’ve got a kick back for them!
Bend over so that I can kick your backsides fools!!!
They are already in a well paying job but capitalism I guess has no bounds. 🙁 Kick!!!
What’s the big deal. I’m from New Jersey and we have a governor who does this kind of stuff all the time. Just part of doing business these days. If you want to play, you’ve got to pay.
No! No! You must be mistaken! State government is always and automatically wonderful and Republicans are inherently noble and care only for the good of everyone.
Don’t forget to lump the Democrats especially in there too. I worked for a couple and know for a fact they are no angels either. So don’t too proud kemo sabe. Hate to burst your bubble.
Oh, I don’t think Democrats are saints. However, unlike some people, I don’t think the parties are the same. Within this political framework, the Democrats are definitely “nicer” towards people in general, while the Republicans don’t even pretend to be for anyone except themselves and their rich 1% buddies. (Or rather, you could say they “pretend”, but in a way that would fool only idiots.)
Ultimately, yes, the Democrats are primarily for the 1% too. But they are not as infested with the outright bigotry and racism that is running rampant in Republican controlled states these days. And I don’t think they are as infested with attitudes of entitlement and “taker” as shown, for example, by Christie and McDonnell.
Make no mistake there are a lot of losers in both parties. And frankly the only Americans they want to see get what they’re entitled to are mostly themselves. Bigotry and racism are not running “rampant” anywhere in these here United States. That’s just a convenient inflammatory perception. If anything I think the Democrats yield the race card disingenuously just to make a noise and cynically suit their own purposes. And hey I AM a Democrat, just a reasonable MOR one.
One way of looking at it is kickbacks are a fact of life. I mean look at Eric Schmidt. He was paid to sit on Apple’s board but surreptitiously stole cutting edge iPhone technology from under the board’s nose and enriched himself through stock options and Google stock going stratospheric.
That’s the world’s biggest kickback if you ask me. Is he being put behind bars for selling industrial secrets to a competitor? One law for the common man, another law for the 1 percenters.
The iHaters will somehow make this the fault of Apple.
Well of course they will. Notice how Foxconn is labelled “Apple supplier Foxconn” when in fact Foxconn makes stuff for many many companies.
Analysts get a 10% increase in page hits if they have the Apple word in their article even if the subject has nothing at all to do with Apple.
This story sounds a bit suspect to me.
It doesn’t sound like Apple to let Foxconn dictate who supplies the components for iPhones. I would have expected Apple to make arrangements themselves.
My hunch is that while there is probably an element of truth to this story ( corrupt Foxconn managers being arrested ), I have my doubts about the precise reason stated in this story.
If Apple were to let Foxconn arrange supplies of components, how could Apple check working conditions within the sub-contractor’s factories ?