Re: Quid pro quo for sure
Everything in life is a "quid pro quo". Without details of the case and the proposed settlement, you can't judge what's going on here.
From the article: "Why might this have come about?"
What I think: The monetary settlement of $400 million didn't have enough regulatory oversight, and so the labor secretary wants to get THAT [which would help prevent future discrimination] in lieu of CASH. Oracle has a LOT of cash last I checked, though maybe not so much these days as it used to have.
If you want to punish a company that can AFFORD to pay out huge lawsuit settlements in lieu of ACTUALLY SOLVING problems, you don't go for a CASH settlement. Instead you offer them a concession, as Sun Tzu would recommend, something you can AFFORD to lose, but in doing so you put YOURSELF in a position of advantage.
So let's say the labor secretary wants to MONITOR the internals of Oracle. Well, they'll fight it to the ends of the earth, right? So you offer them a sweet deal, 1/10 the proposed amount, and in return, you get frequent AUDITS and other oversight, access to their internal paperwork, interviews with employees, yotta yotta yotta.
And yet, Oracle might just reject it and pay the $400 million... (or try for a different settlement). L[aw]yers. Go fig.
Still we do NOT know what's going on. We are intentionally left OUT of the loop on this. But if I apply my "Trump 'Art of the Deal' strategy projection" to the situation, this is what I come up with.
Let's see what actually happens!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
