Bribery and corruption 'fact of life' in Poland?

Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the largest professional service firms in the world and one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).Ernst & Young is a global organization of member firms with 167,000 employees in more than 140 countries, headquartered in London, England. It was ranked by Forbes magazine as the eigth-largest private company in the United States in 2011.

Dubious?

The same accounting firms that were charged with auditing the banks yet failed miserably.

In at least one case they (KPMG) failed to pick up a bank (HBOS) working for Mexican drug cartels, terrorists and Iran. The former chairman of this corrupt bank is now a British government minister but that is not in the E and Y survey.

When these firms, including E&Y, explain their massive failure to audit the Banks properly then they can begin to recover from their dubious reputation.

"Maybe Big 1000 " ???? The world is not governed by their policies or surveys . They just happen to live on bribes for favorable "entertaining" accounting or expertises whose findings depend on how much money will be delivered by channels of corrupted dealings.

I thought that mature people already know that the world is corrupted at all levels and the more money is involved the more corrupted people become . The majority of EU institutions are immersed in a sick and corrupt system . Every year EU money are lost in billions in corrupted dealings . Just read some independent bodies or non profit organisation`s reports on this subject . That is not my opinion it is reality you live in . The whole European financial and banking system is based on corruption , the closer you get to central European Agencies the more corrupted the system becomes.

ec.europa.eu/anti_fraud/investigations/fraud-in-figures/index_en.htm

Monia, you should know better the above could be considered libel.


The report does not indicate Poland as being the only country where bribery and corruption is a problem, although it does suggest in Poland the problem is deeper than most other European countries. If Peter stole 100 Euro and Paul stole 500 Euro, Peter is not innocent on the basis of Paul's actions, they are both thieves...


The indisputable fact, Polskie Radio S.A who own News.pl decided to cover a story on the E & Y report into Bribery and corruption.

The indisputable fact that Paris is the capital of France...................one thing has nothing to do with the other.

Ernst and Young??!?

Are you using this "libel " term to scare me and follow the path of others who try to scare me on this forum and by that try to exclude my views from this site ?

Do you Warszawski think that NY prosecutor was insane by convicting E&Y of fraud ?
(Reuters) - Accounting firm Ernst & Young was sued by New York prosecutors over allegations it helped to hide Lehman Brothers' financial problems, in the first major government legal action stemming from the Wall Street company's 2008 downfall.

The civil fraud case contends that Ernst & Young stood by while Lehman used accounting gimmickry to mask its shaky finances.

The lawsuit says Lehman ran "a massive accounting fraud," but it did not name as defendants any former top executives at the investment bank whose September 2008 collapse helped spark the global financial crisis.

The lawsuit seeks more than $150 million in fees that Ernst & Young received from 2001 to 2008 as Lehman's outside auditor -- less than 1 percent of its global annual revenue -- plus other unspecified damages.

The lawsuit was filed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. People close to Cuomo said one factor in bringing the case was that he knows that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission already is investigating former Lehman chief Richard Fuld and other former top Lehman executives.

Amazing that somebody who claims to be a working lawyer has time to sit trawling the web for news reports about one of the worlds largest accountancy firms. One which she'd thought was a:


Worth checking out Transparency International's rankings for corruption.

and it is also well known that lawyers in Poland are exceptionally good at taking bribes.

The trial is pending , but it has got strong basis to convict people of E&Y who helped Lehman brothers to fool its shareholders. There is no space to expain the allegation`s grounds , but you can read the report how things were done and how the fraud was commited :

jenner.com/lehman

The authors of that report say that :


. Only to make cash !!!!!

Do you think I commit a libel by repeating NYC prosecutors and authors of valid audition of Lehman brothers ?


Ha, ha do you think I spend my entire time sitting on a bench in the courtroom ? I work for myself and curently working with files behind my computer .


No more than in your country !

I am not representative or associate of E & Y, so why should I care what you write about E & Y. Although it is not wise to write or speak about a person or company, without some source of fact, according to your post re: E & Y, the trial is pending, they have not been found guilty.


Maybe only if you are Parisian...

agreed, but I would never be arrogant enough to say that there isn't.

Very rarely, one suspects.


Very true - and a company that size and working in that field is very likely to fall foul of regulators from time to time - it's the nature of the beast.

Lamely attempting to run dowm E&Y doesn't in any way reduce the documented cases of corruption in certain countries.


As I say, check out the Transparency International stats - Pip's country comes out as among the cleanest in the world.

There is a debate at the moment about the suitability and effectiveness of large accountancy firms auditing banks especially when there is a conflict of interests. All the so called big 4 have form here.

Transparency international measures perceptions it doesn't measure actual corruption that's impossible.

The UK for example supports the existence of "tax havens" (for the sake of argument defined as places that don't allow inspection) or use national security as reasons to block investigations. The wide scale problems with government contracts running over budget or the use of secret tendering allows for corrupt practices hidden due to reasons of commercial sensitivity. There is very little transparency in much of the business world for a reason and that has nothing to do with commercial sensitivity.

Without transparency it's impossible to say what is happening. Of course auditors often claim that they were just as much in the dark as the public. White collar crime needs to be treated in the same way as other crime bent auditors need to be jailed. If I were sanction busting for Iran and laundering Drug money I would be jailed not made a government minister.

Wasn't there a corruption scandal a few years back at the law school up in Gdansk? Anybody remember the details?

It is a fact not a suspicion that they are frauders . I don`t need to wait for the judgement , they, themselves happen to admit to a fraud commited by its emploees :) :)

In a deal with the government , accounting firm Ernst & Young agreed to pay $123 million to the government and admitted to wrongful conduct by some of its partners and employees in connection with the firm's participation, from 1999 to 2004, in the promotion of abusive tax shelters to rich individuals. In return, the firm itself won't face criminal charges.

So , they are frauders ! Now you can go to E&Y and snitch on me , Sherlock !

Only you , contrary to the rest of the reasonable people claim that E& Y has got more credibility than the a last year`s snow . People who want to get some credible financial reports know that they should ask an independent auditing firm rather than asking for big 4 corrupted acountants who will write whatever they are commisioned for .

You can prove that, can't you?

I should hope so too.


Ernst and Young is a red herring here and you know it. The relevant fact is that corruption is rife in Poland.

What is the corruption ridden country , not Poland of course . Making Poland some kind of a scapegoat ( only to distract the public interest from their scandals and their own problems is also a libel .

It is a libel to deceive the general public and pack their heads with false data, using the term - projection of a fraud or feeling of beeing pressed to commit a fraud . Poland can sue E&Y for trying to libel Poland and that could be a "major trial" to accuse other country of corruption by giving only as an evidence a survey that measures the level of someone`s feeling . Building such a projection among prospective investors creates misleading environment destroying the future of Poland by portraying our country as a corrupted state which is a total false acusation . There are frauds or corruption acts commited by Poles , but it is just a small fraction of all business actions done by Polish citizens.

Take a look at these facts it is not about a bottle of cognac or a watch handed over as a present for a doctor :

The E&Y deal is just the latest in a long line of settlements relating to the promotion of over the edge-tax-shelters during the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2005, KPMG agreed to pay what was then a record $456 million fine in a deferred prosecution deal covering its role in promoting shelters. Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a record $554 million in a deferred prosecution deal in 2010. And last June, accounting firm BDO USA paid $50 million, and admitted generating $6.5 billion in phony losses in its own deferred prosecution agreement. In a different line of tax abuse cases, in February 2009, Swiss Bank UBS entered into a deferred prosecution deal and paid $780 million in fines, for its role in helping Americans hide assets offshore. Deferred prosecution, also known as pretrial diversion, has been the feds' preferred method of dealing with wrongdoing by prominent corporations since the Department of Justice came under fire for causing the 2002 collapse of accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Enron scandal. This past January, Switzerland's oldest bank, Wegelin & Co., went out of business after it was forced to plead guilty to helping to hide $1.2 billion for American tax cheats.

While the E&Y settlement might seem like it was late in coming, both civil and criminal litigation related to the tax shelter craze continues. Just this week, for example, a Louisiana federal judge shot down a shelter Dow Chemical used to create $1 billion in phony deductions between 1993 and 2003. And today, a Manhattan federal judge sentenced Donna Guerin, 52, to eight years for her role in promoting tax shelters while an attorney with the now defunct Jenkens & Gilchrist law firm. Guerin and three co-defendants were convicted of tax fraud in 2011, but later Guerin and two of her co-defendants were granted a mistrial as a result of misconduct by a juror-ironically, a law school graduate who lied about her background. Guerin later decided to plead guilty, while the other two, including former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner Paul Daugerdas, are scheduled to be retried in September.

Really? Could you perhaps go into the relevant provisions of Polish law?

Sure, here you are : just an example , there are more ,four former Ernst & Young employees -three tax lawyers and an accountant-were convicted in 2010 of conspiracy to defraud the government, tax evasion, obstruction of the IRS and false statements to the IRS for their role in developing and defending the shelters. In November, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit threw out the convictions of two of those attorneys, finding there was insufficient evidence to convict, but upheld the conviction of the two other men. ( Appeals opinion here.) The men had all been members of what E&Y originally called its "VIPER" Group (for "Value Ideas Produce Extraordinary Results") and later renamed the "Strategic Individual Solutions Group".

Two white collar felons are sentenced already , others waiting to be sentenced .

Your examples in no way show that the big four firms are corrupted and will write whatever they are commissioned to write. Of course a few of their employees are corrupt; there are virtually no firms in the world which employ tens of thousands of people worldwide and do not have a few bad apples.

BTW, we're still waiting for you to tell us the provisions of Polish law relevant to your claim that stating that bribery and corruption are fact of life in Poland is libel in Poland. Would you like me to point out to you the provisions of Polish law which I know are relevant to libel against persons?

The survey indicated something else . According to their survey Poland is a corrupted country and such claim must be treated as a libel, because that survey is not a factual survey of corruption cases in Poland but the projections of feelings . Claiming by them that it is a fact of life in Poland can be treated as libel ,because wrongful and untrue criticizm is libel too.

For the third time of asking, could you please be so kind as to advise us of the provisions of Polish law relevant to your claim about libel against Poland. I am astounded that a practising Polish lawyer finds it so difficult to point people towards the provisions of law which she has repeatedly claim apply to a particular matter.

lol.


Polskie Radio S.A seem to believe there is credibility in the report otherwise why else would they report the findings?

I will not advise you about the Polish civil law, because you want it

I don't need any advice on Polish civil law thanks, I know exactly what applicable Polish law says about libelous comments aimed at individuals (I think I've even quoted it here for you in the past).

Let me put my request another way: to advise us of the provisions of Polish law relevant to your claim about libel against Poland or would you like us to conclude that you have no idea at all about the concept ?

Thislaw?? by chance.. what doesnt anyone know how to link instead of filling whoel page with hesaid/shesaid circular arguements that get farther asn farther form point of thread?

osce.org/fom/57140

Not that the Polish Laws would apply to this site or most of what is said here, since as reminded last THREE times this subject came up since I joined in 2012..... this forum is based out of US ...not Poland.

it would be hard to even make the site give up who is from what country in actuality.

BTW : that comes off as a juvenile and childish arguement that only appears to be skirting inability to give an answer..


? What about other members curious to know? <_<
So is the law still on the books?

Actually - European law more or less has established the consensus that if something is accessible within the country, then it can be liable. There's a very good reason why London has become the libel capital of the world. Monia is certainly not a lawyer, for she would understand this and not post such things if she was.

The only defence that exists in this sense is that the site owner cannot be punished in the US.

Nope: that article is about the provisions which deal with libel against individual people. OK, there is Article 273 of the Polish Criminal Code but that doesn't deal with libel.