On March 17, 2000 R. James Woolsey, the former Director of the CIA explained a number of reporters, the reason why companies pay bribes.

He concluded, "...products are often more costly, less technically advanced or both, than your competitors. As a result you bribe a lot."

In 1993 Banco Nacion was updating their computing system and IBM won a $250,000,000 contract. The Argentinean government was investigating allegations of bribes to secure this contract.

Judge Adolfo Bagnasco found that IBM paid $37,000,000 in bribes and the monies were traced from bank accounts in Uruguay, the United States, Luxembough and Switzerland. As a result of this probe 20 former executives of Banco Nacion and four IBM executives were indicted.

The Judge issued international arrest warrants for the four IBM executives. However they were back in New York at IBM's Corporate Headquaters in Armonk, New York.

They had no plans to travel back to Argentina.

IBM through its lobbying efforts convinced the DOJ of the US government to accept, that its executive would make statements in the USA but would not return to Argentina.

While IBM was convincing the US government to take this position, Marcelo Cattaneo, a key suspect in the case, was found hanging from a construction site in northern Buenos Aires. His death was deemed a sucide (???).

But this apparent sucide in 1998 was highly questionable because a newpaper clipping about the case was found in the dead man's mouth.

Cattaneo was the "key witness" for the Argentiean government. Without him there was no stong case. He was the go-between-man for the alleged bribes.

Banco Nacion canceled the $250M contract and sued IBM for $174M, but an out-of-court settlement was reached.

IBM bought their way out of this one. However, Judge Bagnasco traced the brides back to IBM Corporate.

Nevertheless the power, influence, and deeds of IBM's CEO Louis Gerstner were clearly demonstrated in this serious case.