Why companies can’t afford to keep dealing with dictators

On Monday, the New York Times revealed how Nokia has for years provided equipment and services that propped up Russia’s vast surveillance system that has been used to spy on dissidents. Although Nokia denounced the invasion of Ukraine and said it would halt sales in the country, the company told the Times that it was required to make products that comply with the surveillance system.

In a statement, Nokia said the Times article is misleading, emphasizing that the company “does not manufacture, install or service” the surveillance tools. “We condemn any misuse of lawful intercept to infringe on human rights,” it said. “To prevent this, there is a strong need for multi-lateral action to ensure sufficient frameworks are put in place.”

Laws vs. ethics

There’s no evidence Nokia did anything illegal, but ethics and laws aren’t the same thing.

It’s hard to imagine Nokia didn’t know what was going on in Russia. One expert on Russian intelligence who spoke to the Times said Nokia “had to have known how their devices would be used.”

Experts say there’s no business (or consumer, for that matter) that can keep its hands perfectly clean. The vast and interconnected nature of global supply chains make it all but impossible to avoid some interaction — directly or indirectly — with corruption, labor exploitation or other unsavory elements of global commerce.

The question, then, is how close you are to the bad behavior, says Jason Brennan, a professor of business ethics at Georgetown University.

“No one’s willing to swim in a pool when there’s a dead body in the pool, but you’re willing to swim in the ocean…It’s sort of about the concentration of death around you,” he says. “Markets are a…