International Law

A Trillion Dollars Lost

Posted on December 08, 2008
It must be the Obama effect. Whatever the cause, the corporate fight against international public graft is now appearing on YouTube. To mark the World Economic Forum's International Anti-Corruption Day on Dec. 9, 2008, the top brass at some of the 140 signatory companies from the Forum's Partnering Against Corruption Initiative appear in the video below...

Mandarins Gone Wild

Posted on December 07, 2008
Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon. Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor's orgy is now a democratic institution. "Topless Pizza Lunch." ~Alistair CookeAccording to the Associated Press (which based its reporting on stories in the state-run Xinhua News Agency), 23 officials from the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou took a three-week trip to the U...

Friday Farewells

Posted on December 04, 2008
We enjoyed the discussion here this week about human rights. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes more sense when you remember to look at it through the eyes of the victims of public graft. On the other hand, when the FCPA becomes a mere compliance process, you can begin to wonder what the fuss is all about...

Hired Guns And The FCPA

Posted on December 03, 2008
A San Francisco jury on Tuesday refused to impose civil liability on Chevron for the deaths and injuries of Nigerian protesters caused by company-paid soldiers.The plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., (99-2506, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California) accused Chevron of wrongful death, torture, assault, battery and negligence...

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More Hurdles For Private Litigants

Posted on December 02, 2008
In a case called Glazer Capital Management v. Magistri, the Ninth Circuit last week affirmed the dismissal of an FCPA-related class-action suit by shareholders of InVision Technologies, Inc. against the company and certain of its officers.The case interprets the U...

Postscript From Nigeria

Posted on December 01, 2008
Support for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act can come from unexpected places. Like Nigeria, for example. Here's how:Our friend and colleague there -- a lawyer who also runs a due diligence service, talks about the challenges of operating a legitimate business...

Just Laws And Human Dignity

Posted on November 30, 2008
The failed nations of the world victimize the people who live in them and put the rest of us at risk. Basket cases like Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are often linked to carnage and chaos, sometimes within their borders and often beyond...

Family, Food, Football . . . And FCPA

Posted on November 26, 2008
Our post yesterday referred to the long-pending Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations at Halliburton and DaimlerChrysler (now Daimler AG). For readers wanting to know what the two companies are now saying about their FCPA issues, we've rounded up their latest disclosures...

The FCPA, With All The Fixins . . .

Posted on November 25, 2008
U.S. v. Kozeny: Bloomberg's David Glovin continues his great coverage of Frederic Bourke's prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Glovin's latest story says two of the government's witnesses will be a former U.S. Defense Department analyst, Christine Rastas, and John Pulley, an ex-agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration who was co-defendant Victor Kozeny?s security chief...

Can Someone Explain The Phone?

Posted on November 24, 2008
Hi,Nice blog article recently [here] about Bulgaria and Romania! Having extensive experience dealing over there, I could not resist sharing this with you. I took the attached photo when I visited one of our customers..... This was the front door entrance...

In The Master's Defense

Posted on November 23, 2008
As we've said, nothing has magnified the impact of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on corporations more than respondeat superior. Latin for "let the master answer," it's the legal doctrine holding companies vicariously liable for crimes committed by employees acting within the scope of their employment...

Aibel Pleads Guilty

Posted on November 21, 2008
Aibel Group Ltd. of the United Kingdom pleaded guilty yesterday to violating the antibribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and failing to comply with the terms of its prior deferred prosecution agreement. It admitted making previously undisclosed illegal payments to Nigerian customs officials through its freight forwarder in return for preferential treatment...

That Friday Feeling

Posted on November 20, 2008
The deep-thinking Kevin LaCroix at the D&O Diary had a post last week called On Blogging. Concerning the use of technology, he had this to say:It is easy to set up a blog. About two minutes on Blogger.com is enough to get started. But to get a blog set up the way you want and to deal with all of the problems that inevitably arise, a willingness to futz around with technology is indispensable...

The Briefing Book

Posted on November 19, 2008
The President Elect and his transition team aren't spending hours each day pondering the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But there is one FCPA matter that should be on their agenda -- the investigation of BAE Systems. Why? Because that case -- whatever the outcome -- is a chance for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to fighting global public corruption...

Bulgaria Hits Bottom

Posted on November 18, 2008
Corruption is now strangling its economy and robbing its people of any immediate hope for prosperity and freer lives. As foreigners pull the plug on investments and its stock market falls -- for 20 consecutive trading sessions now, down 82% overall -- Bulgaria continues to be under the world's anti-corruption spotlight...

Rocket Scientist Pleads Guilty In China Bribery Case

Posted on November 17, 2008
A Virginia-based scientist who sold controlled space-launch technology to China by bribing government officials there has pleaded guilty to violating the antibribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.Shu Quan-Sheng (left), 68, a native of China, naturalized U...

The Paradox Of Corruption

Posted on November 16, 2008
The man on the left is David Hess, an Assistant Professor of Business Law & Business Ethics at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He's on the blog today because he thinks and writes a lot about how to control corruption in international business...

Congressman's FCPA Trial Draws Near

Posted on November 13, 2008
Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) moved closer this week to becoming the first member of the United States House of Representatives to be tried for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday tossed Rep...

Bourke Raises Vindictive Prosecution

Posted on November 12, 2008
Frederic Bourke wants to know if the U.S. is prosecuting him for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because he was a whistleblower who interfered in the strategic relationship between the United States and Azerbaijan.Bourke's lawyer -- the high-profile Dan Webb -- has asked Judge Shira A...

Outing Secret Account Holders

Posted on November 11, 2008
In July this year, we posted about the U.S. Senate's investigation into how Swiss bank UBS AG hid around $18 billion for 19,000 Americans that went unreported to the IRS. We mentioned that the Senate's 115-page report cited a memo from LGT Bank, run by the royal family of Liechtenstein, about the use of secret offshore accounts for bribery in the U...

The FCPA Goes To Court

Posted on November 10, 2008
For such a high-profile federal law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act doesn't make it to court much. In fact, most years go by without a single trial involving the FCPA. That's because typical defendants would rather cut a deal with prosecutors instead of risking a guilty verdict that might carry a five-year jail term...

Fearing Third Parties

Posted on November 09, 2008
U.S. executives know that most Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance risks come from third parties -- overseas acquisition targets, joint venture partners, agents and others. Despite that knowledge, about three quarters of them think their company's due diligence of intermediaries isn't working...

Siemens Announces ?1 Billion Reserve

Posted on November 06, 2008
Siemens AG said yesterday that it has reserved ?1 billion in fiscal 2008 "in connection with the settlement being sought by the company and with authorities in Germany and the United States." The short statement also said, "This current estimate is based on the status of ongoing discussions being held between the company and authorities in Germany and the U...

Bribery's Other Victims

Posted on November 05, 2008
The comments were polite but pointed. This blog, the reader said, showers attention on bribe payers but ignores bribe takers. That's not fair. Those taking kickbacks are at least as culpable as those paying them.We agree, but we have a defense. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act --our subject in this space -- targets bribe payers exclusively and gives bribe takers a pass...

And The Winner Is . . .

Posted on November 04, 2008
. . . the constitution of the United States.Once again, We The People have peacefully transferred the power to lead our country. That event, each time it happens, is nothing short of a miracle.Teddy White, one of our greatest political writers, who spoke so eloquently about the passing of the mantle of leadership to a new generation in 1960, once said, "There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign...

U.S. Law Firms Face China Bribery Probe

Posted on November 02, 2008
At least two unidentified American law firms with offices in Beijing and Hong Kong have been mentioned in connection with an anti--corruption sweep in China. The current investigation is apparently linked to Avon Product's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act disclosure two weeks ago...

A Word Of Thanks . . .

Posted on October 30, 2008
We're always thankful for Fridays, of course, but today ranks above others. Finally we can say goodbye to October 2008 -- a month that changed the world. We asked a friend for a favor last week. "What if I don't help you?" he said. "We'll tell everyone you're a banker," we answered...

Limiting The Local Law Defense

Posted on October 29, 2008
An Opinion and Order in U.S. v. Kozeny issued October 21, 2008 and mentioned in our post yesterday deals directly with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's local-law affirmative defense. That defense says otherwise prohibited payments are permitted if the "payment, gift, offer, or promise of anything of value that was made, was lawful under the written laws and regulations of the foreign official?s" country...

In Bourke's Case, We Stand Corrected

Posted on October 28, 2008
We never forget how many of our readers are real experts in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. And how generous they are with their help. It happened again late last week when they asked us to set the record straight in U.S. v. Kozeny. Although we'd posted recently that the prosecution in the Southern District of New York was over as to defendant Frederic Bourke, he and the government are in fact gearing up for a criminal trial...

Use It Or Lose It

Posted on October 26, 2008
We always enjoy it when Pete from DC drops by the blog. He's a veteran compliance professional and thinks deep thoughts about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Lately, he told us, he's been thinking about audit rights -- the kind mentioned in our recent post about joint ventures...

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