CCGL9067 Companies and People: Friends or Foes?

Journaling – Week 7
Name: Chung Yik Lun Anson UID: u3593621
Industry: Online Retailing Company name: Amazon.com, Inc.
White-collar crimes are common in modern days under the rapid economic growth. Amazon, as a
flagship, is never an exception. In this field, white collar crime can be any kinds, like malpresentation,
embezzlement of money, and bribery since e-commerce covers a large area in our lives, from virtual
world to reality, making it difficult to get rid of its influence.

Speaking of employees, Amazon failed to comply with its promise on both the Amazon Flex drivers
and customers to provide the total amounts of tips to the drivers, but intentionally obscured the
policies step by step aiming to lower the payment to the drivers so that there will be more money for
operating the company. The false claim did not only deprive the labour rights but might also involve
malpresentation of information and embezzlement of payment. In addition, Amazon, throughout these
years, kept on modifying the policies whilst misleading the drivers and customers under thousands of
complaints, reflecting its negligence towards people’s grievances. These problematic behaviours,
despite reduced the income of the employees, also violated the right to know of all the stakeholders,
posing a huge threat to the social justice.

Speaking of authorities, Amazon India faced a serious allegation lately saying that it might involve in
bribing the government officials when it claimed to be no tolerance for corruption after the exposure
flagged by its former employees. These whistleblowers was eventually succeeded to force the Indian
government to start the investigation on Amazon. However, the criminal should be the in-house legal
counsellors of Amazon India – Vikas Chopra and Rahul Sundaram, who funnelled the payment from
Amazon to bribe the officials in hope to favour the business of Amazon India, one of the largest
clients of them. Although there was no evidence proving the presence of Amazon in the whole
bribery, and Amazon had kicked them out from the firm whilst carried out an internal investigation, it
still unveiled the deficiency of Amazon to prevent bribery and other white-collar crimes among its
employees.

Considering the rising trend of the occurrence of white-collar crimes in these transnational
corporations, eradication of this problem is necessary to maintain the order of the economy and
society. For the former case, a fine of $61.7 million had to be made to compensate for its acts,
generating a deterrent effect to the company.

Oppositely, in the latter case, Amazon did not receive any kinds of punishment so far. However,
although Amazon was likely to be exempted in the legal responsibilities, it was still condemned by the
public because of its moral culpability.

To compare the two forms, although punishment model approach can deter the companies to breach
the law, the effects are usually short-lived, and there may be a loophole: if the cost of committing the
crime is less than the potential gain brought by the crime, they will continue to disobey the law.
Meanwhile, compliance approach can change one’s cognition by socialization, promotion, and
education, hence having long-lived effects.
References:
https://www.india.com/business/amazon-bribery-india-case-news-key-details-you-need-to-know-
4971688/
https://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/bribes-to-govt-officials-amazon-probes-law-
firms-in-house-counsel-7523403/
https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/the-amazon-bribery-case-in-india-is-
getting-murkier-and-the-lack-of-transparency-is-not-helping/articleshow/86553927.cms
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/02/amazon-pay-617-million-settle-ftc-charges-
it-withheld-some