But but but, they made a subsidiary marketing firm to externalize the shady deals so that the separate firm could be closed at will and plausible deniability granted under the sociopath license of limited liability corporations.

IF they do this, they do Deathsquad work the same way under Xe or other subcontractors. "We didn't know they'd use such tactics to brutally suppress the uprising, we thought they'd use McDonalds fries"

Even so, I think it's an interesting development. It's a sign that the FCPA really is having an effect, in that Unaoil appears to be a bribery outsourcing firm, a way of creating plausible deniability. But its success at serving that market makes it a very attractive target to law enforcement.

Corruption, like cancer, always happens. It's inevitable when you build large systems out of individual pieces that have their own needs and agency. But as with cancer, as long as you can keep it to a minimum generally and deal well with the occasional flare-up, it's not fatal.

There is always corruption, but it varies massively between countries and time periods, so something can be done about it. Cynicism is just useless.