Doing Business in Bogota?

[snooppuppy]

Just got back from Bogota Sunday after spending 10 days with my novia, mostly spending time with N's family. I had a little exercise mapped out with two expectations in mind. One, N and I had been talking about if she came to the US, what would she do. I had mentioned that sales can be a great career for women in the US (the women sales reps in my business do very well) and N seemed interested. Second, I thought I might visit a few printers in Bogota with the idea in mind that I might find equipment for them in the US, resulting in a plausible reason to deduct some of my travel expenses. I was impressed with the way N used her contacts to set up several appointments and showed a lot of promise in her ability in talking on the phone, etc.

While I entered into the business aspect of this kind of half-hearted, not really expecting any business prospects to materialize, there actually appears to be a good prospect of brokering some deals, in fact I nearly have a small piece of equipment sold, with prospects of some large deals in the future. While I am investigating the details of this in other venues, I was wondering if anyone on this board has done any sales in Colombia. There are four areas (I think) that I need to address:

1. Income Tax consequences in US and Colombia

2. Transport and customs issues to Colombia

3. Contractual issues in machinery transactions

4. Any cultural differences in business that I might be unaware of.

Any thoughts or experiences from fellow gringos would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, N and I had dinner with Cap'n Jib and his lady S twice while I was in Bogota. The Cap'n appears to have reeled in a good one in S, and he also appears to run a good ship as well A thoroughly enjoyalble time was had by all.

In traveling to LA, meeting fellow gringos had turned out to be a great experience in addition to meeting all the lovely Latinas.

[Colombian Man]

Hi Snooppuppy,

Give me a call, I might be able to help you with some info about doing business in Colombia. I started my own and it's going great now, but at the begining I had some issues. Seems that we were in Bogota at the same time...too bad we did not know..take care..

CM

[Bueller]

Snoop, loosely regarding number four: if you're going to do much business in Colombia, make sure you do some research on local laws of conduct. I'll tell you why -- by not educating myself completely on the intricacies of Brazilian law, I ran afoul of one of those laws unwittingly once and could have gone to jail if the other person had pressed the issue. All I did was ask an employee about why she placed a R$50 in the register a certain way; initially I didn't suspect her of anything, but because of the way she got defensive about it I asked her a couple of more times in a couple of different ways. If she had called the police, I would have been taken straight to jail and criminally prosecuted for calumny. Of course, when a different employee sued my ex-partner using outrageous lies about how she was supposedly treated as an employee, she was able to compensate herself quite handsomely on my nickel, with no fear of being prosecuted for impugning OUR integrity and conduct.

If you say to a man in Brazil, "Eu SEI que você foi raptado!" ("I KNOW that you were seduced/ravished/raped"), you can be imprisoned for calumny as well. Since technically only a woman can be seduced/ravished/raped, you are calling his manhood into question and can do serious time for that.

Another quirk of Brazilian law revolves around the use of racial epithets. You may have heard about the Argentine soccer player who found this one out the hard way a few months back. He hurled some truly ugly racial insults at a black Brazilian player during a game in São Paulo, and promptly found himself looking at the prospect of a 10-year prison sentence. Not that I think you would do such a thing, but you get the idea -- when in Rome, be sure to know Roman law.

Another example, which I just heard about the other day, is the law that says that police cannot arrest someone within two days of an election, unless he is caught in the very commission of a crime, leading them to release a confessed murderer who had turned himself in this past week.

I can't confirm this one, but a Brazilian friend told me that if you accidentally run someone over with your car you can wind up doing more time in jail than if you tell the police that you were just pissed off and felt like killing someone.

So just be aware, and don't assume that laws in a foreign country are like the laws back home. Get to know the laws so that you don't run afoul of them.

[snooppuppy]

Of course, when a different employee sued my ex-partner using outrageous lies about how she was supposedly treated as an employee, she was able to compensate herself quite handsomely on my nickel, with no fear of being prosecuted for impugning OUR integrity and conduct

.

Gee, Bueller, I was unaware that LAM countries had gotten as stupid as the US on employment law. I once had an employee sue me with one of the counts consisted of the fact that while she had volunteered to organize our open house, since it was not part of her job description, we should have compensated her extra. :mad:


The importing I would do would not require me to have any employees. I can't make much sense out of US employment law, let alone Colombia's.

[Mr. Vuckovich]

Check this out. Brasil by far the most racist country in the world dead even with America. The only difference is in America we all speak our minds about it. Brasil never talks about it. There is not one black person in hierarchy Brasil politics. Brasil says they are not racist but they are. Go figure!

[LastLion]

Mr, Vucko, I am not sure about Brasil, but maybe its bad as where you live in the south!

I was downtown in San Francisco today. Interestinly enough I noticed many biracial couples , black men with white women, White men with black women, china girl with latino. all the mixed up! Interestingly it was a pretty mixxed pot! I was listening as I waited for a store to open and I think I heard 8 diferent languages in a period of 30 minutes!

It was inspiring in my book! Being raised around I feel fortunate!

Oh yaa and of course there were the homos & lesbians !!!! I even saw and asian guy with an latino!!!!