Procure IQ

A recent article in Knowledge @ Wharton Universia on phishing, bribery, and falsification: combating the complexities of carbon fraud provides a great argument on why cap and trade should be abandoned in favour of straight carbon taxes (and credits if the goal is to encourage corporations to be as efficient with carbon emissions as possible). According to the article, carbon trading systems, especially when coupled with lax Internet security and third party verification, pose a great opportunity for crooks who want to defraud honest companies out of millions of dollars. The first example the article gave was of …

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If you’ve been following the news, four executives of Rio Tinto, a mining and exploration company, recently admitted to a court in the Chinese city of Shanghai that they took bribes totalling over 10 Million Yuan (BBC). Not long after, they each received prison sentences of between 7 and 14 years in addition to large fines and confiscation of their personal assets. Liu Caikui received seven years, Ge Minqiang received eight years, Stern Hu received ten years, and Wang Yong, accused of receiving the largest bribe, of almost 9M, received 14 years (CNN). This should send a …

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A year ago we had GhostNet, a massive cyber espionage network rooted in China that went well beyond simple allegations of spying on Tibetan Institutions. After a 10-month investigation, a network of over 1,295 infected hosts in 103 countries was discovered that included computers at ministries of foreign affairs, international organizations, news media, and NGOs. Then we had massive cyber attacks that originated in China, including one against Google last December, and now even Google is pulling out of the country (as it must do no evil). And now, we find out that GhostNet was but a …

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Logistics Management just ran an excellent article on Logistics and the Law: Don’t Pay Twice, by Brent Wm. Primus, J.D. of Primus Law Office that I think is a must read for anyone responsible for global shipping.When a shipper engages a broker or when a shipper or a broker books a load with a carrier, they expect to be billed and to pay for the charges for moving the freight. What they don’t expect is to have to pay the charges twice. Unfortunately this does happen and, in the last few years, has happened with increasing frequency. This emerging issue …

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Editor’s Note: Today’s post is from Dick Locke, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on International Sourcing and Procurement. (His previous guest posts are still archived.) It appears that Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of the US’ C-TPAT program to occasionally put marijuana into trucks that have been granted expedited clearance into the US. How serious is this?Here are a couple of articles:Trucker Program Attracts Drug SmugglersMexican Drug Smugglers Taking Advantage of New Program That Speeds Truckers Across the BorderIf you dig into the articles you will see that there are about 5 million north-bound truckloads crossing the Mexican border annually. …

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A recent article over on CNN Money that noted that the store theft cost to your family, largely due to a 9% jump in retail theft over the past year, is $435 — as shoplifting, employee theft, and supply chain fraud cost retailers $42.2 Billion between July 2008 and June 2009, had a surprising revelation. Breaking this mega-loss down, we find that: 18.7 Billion is due to employee theft which could be considerably reduced with better screening, security and processes 15.0 Billion is due to shoplifting which could be somewhat reduced with …

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Editor’s Note: This post is from regular contributor Norman Katz, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on supply chain fraud and supply chain risk. Catch up on his column in the archive.Dimitrios P. Biller, a former managing counsel for Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., alleges in a recent lawsuit that Toyota forced him to withhold evidence from opposing counsel in lawsuits relating to vehicle rollover accidents. As some readers will remember when (small) sports utility vehicles (SUVs) were introduced there were a rash of rollover accidents that occurred. I recall that the reasons were generally centered on the vehicles …

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Editor’s Note: This post is from regular contributor Norman Katz, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on supply chain fraud and supply chain risk. Catch up on his column in the archive.Not long after one of my supply chain fraud presentations I was informed that one of the attendees had gone back to her employer and reported “I think I (now) smell a rat”. The company owner was not able to schedule to attend my seminar so he sent someone in his place, and was quite thankful he did.(Fortunately it was not the fraudster who the company owner sent to …

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Share This on Linked In If you’re on the ball and a US public company, you’re probably worrying about the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) because the government has been cracking down — hard — on violations and handing out million, and billion, dollar fines [...]

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Share This on Linked In Recent articles on cargo theft from eSide Supply Management and S&DC Executive highlighted a 2008 study from LoJack Supply Chain Integrity that uncovered 299 cargo thefts in 2008 (in the US) at truck stops, parking lots (including drop yards), facilities, warehouses, store locations, vehicles parked on [...]

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