This story intrigued me from the WSJ because how should we treat international companies doing business with firms and other countries that do not operate with our norms. The article does not list a single American company, but the US District Attorney is involved so I must assume there was a crime with the USA. The $800 million dollar fine is huge! At any rate, Siemens used bribes to get contracts with China and Russia. Is that not the way business is always done in those countries, especially Russia? Are we to expect the Germans to impose their thought process onto Russia? Once you hit their territory its their rules. Perhaps I am just a novice and since we have WTO etc maybe there is a level playing field. Is the US involved because they are traded on the NYSE and hence the SEC can impose such fines? Too bad this rigorous investigation looked over the Madoff ponzi scheme. So, the question is when is Rome….Do we do business on the terms of the foreign government and their culture or ours? What’s really crazy is that OPEC is a larger scandal than Siemens will ever be. Im sure there is no bribery or corruption there…ha ha.