By Alec Hogg
I’ve been following stinky disclosures around the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB with a mixture of horror and relief. Horror at the way bad actors in top multinational abused their power. Relief that it’s not just in South Africa where such abuse has occurred. At long last the focus is expanding from the corrupted to the corruptors.
Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs has been exposed as facilitating the $2.7bn plunder of Malaysian state assets at 1MDB. Indirectly, by arranging for $6.5bn to be injected from investors; directly through charging an outrageous 10% commission for doing so.
Malaysia wants that $650m raising fee back – and yesterday 1MDB’s biggest supporter issued summons against Goldman for the billions it “invested”. South Africa’s multinational equivalents in the state capture scandal – McKinsey, KPMG, Bain, and Software AG – seem tame by comparison. But they, too, allowed bad actors to abuse global brands to facilitate plunder.
Former Goldman exec turned whistleblower Alex Turnbull says his colleagues in the Singapore office justified their corrupt business practices because this was “the Asian Way”. No doubt those at the McKinsey et al expressed the same opinions about an “African Way.” Not any more. Progress indeed.