Usually, when people talk about “too big to fail” they are referring to financial institutions and insurance companies.

But what happens when a company is too big to reign in? When it does what it wants and wields so much political clout that investigations seem to evaporate?

Walmart is such a company.

But maybe this time they will have to answer for their actions.

Because, fortunately, it is The New York Times that has been doing the investigating, not a government entity or by Wal-Mart—the internal investigation was shut down by company executives when the evidence wasn’t in their favor—and has been ongoing for years.

It seems that much of Walmart’s global growth in Mexico and other countries has been fueled by bribes.

Rather, Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance — public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals.

In a statement a Walmart spokesman said, “We are committed to having a strong and effective global anticorruption program everywhere we operate and taking appropriate action for any instance of noncompliance.”

But actions speak louder than words and Walmart’s actions are a case study of leadership failure in the home office—all the way to the top.

But Wal-Mart’s leaders did not tell Mexican authorities about his allegations, not even after their own investigators concluded there was “reasonable suspicion” to believe laws had been violated, records and interviews show.

It seems similar tactics were used in India and China, too.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a federal law that makes it a crime for American corporations or their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials and the Justice Department and SEC Have started their own investigations.

As the investigations unfold it will be interesting to see if a corporation can, indeed, be so big that it’s above the law.

On a related topic.

One more thought for those who believe that newspapers are no longer relevant.

I seriously doubt that any Internet media company, let alone a blogger, could or would have mounted this investigation and stuck with it—nor can this story be told in 140 character spurts.

No matter what happens we owe a debt to The New York Times.

Flickr image credit: The New York Times and Walmart

Why bother with better products, efficient manufacturing and good business process when you can have a bribe budget instead? It’s simpler and almost guarantees that your company wins the bidding.

Ask Siemens, who just paid a $1.6 billion fine, with more to come.

The bribe budget for Siemens’ telecom unit ran $40-50 million a year and was professionally managed by Reinhard Siekaczek, the accountant who ran the slush fund from 2002-2006, although it neither started nor ended with him.

Bribery is nothing new, companies and individuals have been doing it for centuries, so why does this one bother me so much?

It’s not that Simens’ ex-presidnet landed on his feet—don’t they almost always?

“Klaus Kleinfeld, the company’s C.E.O., resigned in April 2007. He has denied wrongdoing and is now head of Alcoa, the aluminum giant.”

But the following really makes my blood boil…

“Although court documents are salted throughout with the word “bribes,” the Justice Department allowed Siemens to plead to accounting violations because it cooperated with the investigation and because pleading to bribery violations would have barred Siemens from bidding on government contracts in the United States. Siemens doesn’t dispute the government’s account of its actions.”

Got that? Siemens admits what it gave bribes, but our government doesn’t want to prevent a corporation that cheated dozens of American companies out of hundreds of millions of dollars of possible business from being able to bid on US government contracts.

How’s that for a warm and fuzzy feeling at Christmas?

Image credit: flickr