Just Shut Them Down

So, once again, we see McKinsey & Company having to pay significant fines for facilitating corruption, this time in South Africa.

It is increasingly clear that this is not a few bad apples, this is their core business model.

They need to go the way of Arthur Andersen:

A McKinsey & Co. subsidiary agreed to pay more than $122 million to resolve allegations it paid bribes to officials at two South African state-owned companies to help the firm win millions of dollars of consulting work.

McKinsey Africa was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and as part of the settlement, the subsidiary entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, according to prosecutors in Manhattan.

Vikas Sagar, a former McKinsey senior partner in the consulting firm’s Johannesburg office who participated in the bribery scheme, pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, according to the Justice Department. Sagar’s guilty plea was unsealed on Thursday. Attempts to reach Sagar weren’t immediately successful.

McKinsey in a statement said it conducted an investigation into the conduct of Sagar and terminated his employment more than seven years ago, adding that it has “zero tolerance” for such conduct. The firm added that it was “deeply remorseful” that an employee of the firm engaged in such conduct, and that it had made a full repayment of fees to the state-owned companies and would continue to cooperate with U.S. and South African authorities.

Unethical behavior is at the core of their business.

Just shut them down.