International Law

Why Comply?

Posted on September 04, 2008
The potential consequences of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation for an individual are easy to explain and understand. Personal tragedies result from the losses of freedom, jobs and reputations, and there's often financial ruin and damage to families...

Ex-KBR Boss Pleads Guilty

Posted on September 03, 2008
The Justice Department said today that Albert ?Jack? Stanley, 65, a former chairman and CEO of KBR, the global engineering and construction firm based in Houston, pleaded guilty to a two-count criminal information charging him with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud...

Former Execs Avoid Hard Time

Posted on September 02, 2008
Two former telecommunications executives who admitted bribing employees of state-owned companies in Africa and concealing the payments have avoided prison in exchange for their cooperation in an ongoing FBI investigation.The Justice Department said yesterday that Roger Michael Young, 48, of Washington, D...

Kozeny's Co-Defendant Wins Appeal

Posted on August 31, 2008
Frederic Bourke won't face Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges after all. He was indicted in May 2005 with Victor Kozeny and David Pinkerton over their alleged plan to bribe officials from Azerbaijan from 1997 to 1999 in connection with the privatization of the state oil company...

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Con-way Settles FCPA Enforcement Action

Posted on August 28, 2008
Impermissible "facilitating payments" to customs officials and bribes to airline employeesCalifornia-based Con-way, Inc., a global freight forwarder, has paid a $300,000 penalty and accepted a cease and desist order to settle a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action with the Securities and Exchange Commission...

Two Minute Warning

Posted on August 26, 2008
Boy, were we wrong. Syriana deserves all 5 Red Flags -- not as a movie, but as a compliance tool. A thoughtful reader set us straight. Our sincere thanks to Daniel, whose imaginative application of Syriana we heartily endorse.Here's what he told us:Dear FCPA Blog,Very nice analysis of Syriana in response to the movie that at least this reader had called out, following your post entitled "Sleaze in the Cinema, Take One...

Swiss Police Raid Alstom

Posted on August 25, 2008
Swiss police last week arrested a former manager of French engineering giant Alstom and searched for evidence as part of a corruption and money-laundering investigation. Offices near Zurich and in Baden were raided, as were homes in several cantons.Paris-based Alstom is a global leader in equipment and services for power generation and high-speed rail transport...

More Than Gold

Posted on August 24, 2008
Just a generation ago, the idea that it would host the greatest Olympics ever would have been outlandish. Black bicycles, gray Mao suits, grim faces -- a closed country, fearful and feared. But for the past 16 days, the world has witnessed something awesome...

That's Milton Friedman?

Posted on August 21, 2008
Syriana is the best Hollywood movie ever made about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In fact, it's the only Hollywood movie ever made about the FCPA. So in that class of its own, it takes the top prize. But -- despite enthusiastic support of the film by some of our readers -- we'd rank it a bit lower...

Why We Cheat

Posted on August 19, 2008
People who've violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act fall into two categories: those who had criminal intent from the start, and those who stumbled into the offense. It's the second group -- the regular folks who've done a bad thing -- who are so tragic...

Trouble For Siemens In South America

Posted on August 18, 2008
Scandal-plagued Siemens now faces possible charges of public corruption in Argentina. Police in Buenos Aires raided Siemens' office there in connection with a bribery investigation. The United States, Greece, Italy, China, Hungary, Indonesia and Norway are also investigating whether Siemens broke anti-corruption laws...

Panalpina Quits Nigeria

Posted on August 18, 2008
Compliance concerns have forced Swiss logistics giant Panalpina to withdraw completely from the Nigerian domestic market. It said in its 2008 half-yearly report (available here) that it will sell its local operations to a Nigerian group and retain no ownership or operating interest...

Sleaze In The Cinema, Take One

Posted on August 14, 2008
Of all the great movies about public corruption, one of our favorites is "The Big Easy." Released in 1987, it's set in New Orleans -- the most unique (and least American) of all American cities. We were living in New Orleans when the movie came out, and a big part of our work then already involved compliance...

A Question Of Knowledge

Posted on August 12, 2008
The mailbag this week brought the following question from KER:The FCPA prohibits payments to a third party while "knowing" that all or a portion of the payment will go directly or indirectly to a foreign official. The FCPA defines "knowing" as "highly probably" when it it forms an element of the offense and only "substantially certain to occur" with respect to conduct, a circumstance, or a result...

Speaking Of International Cooperation . . .

Posted on August 10, 2008
We were moved -- very moved -- by the opening scenes from the Beijing Olympics. Part of the fun is seeing the fabulous changes in China since our first visit there 15 years ago. Has any country ever transformed itself so completely in such a short amount of time?And watching the China - United States basketball game was a kick as well...

Global Compliance Resources

Posted on August 07, 2008
U.K.-based Ethical Corporation magazine's 2008 anti-corruption special report (available for download here) includes a table we've found useful. It lists many currently active multilateral anti-corruption agreements and describes how they work. Some of the conventions and voluntary agreements will be familiar to most readers, while others will be new...

A Quagmire Of Corruption

Posted on August 06, 2008
Remember when Siemens talked hopefully about a quick resolution of its global corruption scandal? Clean house, deal with regulators and prosecutors, turn the page and move forward. Well, forget quick. It's not going to happen. Every day, it seems, there's more bad news...

He's Got The FCPA Blues

Posted on August 03, 2008
Reuters' Matt Daily said it best:A year ago, Alcoa Inc brought Siemens Chief Executive Klaus Kleinfeld across the Atlantic to take the helm of the U.S. aluminum giant.This week, his baggage arrived.Daily's story is about Siemens' decision to sue 11 former executives, including ex-ceo Kleinfeld...

A Public Test For GE's Compliance Program

Posted on July 29, 2008
The Corporate Crime Reporter (CCR) has a story here about a Sarbanes Oxley whistleblower complaint filed against General Electric by former in-house counsel, Adriana Koeck. She says she was fired from GE for reporting fraud in Brazil to her superiors, including alleged tax cheating and potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Distasteful But Not Illegal, Say The Lords

Posted on July 29, 2008
The House of Lords ruled today that the Serious Fraud Office didn't break the law when it stopped its investigation into bribery allegations involving BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia.In April this year the High Court in London slammed the SFO's decision...

Calling All Pundits

Posted on July 27, 2008
The mailbag brings plenty of pleasant surprises -- and this morning was no exception. We received the following message (changed slightly to protect identities):Dear FCPA Blog, As a member of the Law Review, I am required to write a student note. I am very interested in the FCPA and would love to write a note relating to it...

Readers' Choice

Posted on July 24, 2008
Based on total page views, here are the top five posts from the FCPA Blog so far in 2008:1. Feeling the Heat Overseas, June 9, 2008Foreign companies can't be blamed for wondering if they're being singled out under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The names in the FCPA-related headlines alone are enough to cause high anxiety...

An Insider's Tale About Kazakhstan's Corruption

Posted on July 23, 2008
The Wall Street Journal's July 22 Page One story on public corruption in Kazakhstan involving the ruling family is extraordinary. Reporters Glenn Simpson and Susan Schmidt have dug deep, with help from the former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev...

BAE To Reform Its Compliance -- Later

Posted on July 22, 2008
In May this year, after the Department of Justice briefly held and searched BAE's ceo and a director in separate U.S. airports, we asked if stonewalling the U.S. government in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation ever makes sense.We posed the question because BAE appeared to be doing just that -- thumbing its nose at the DOJ's investigation of alleged illegal payments to Prince Bandar bin-Sultan in return for the sale of jet fighters to the Saudi government...

Bulgaria Joins The Wrong Club

Posted on July 20, 2008
One benefit of "globalization" -- a word we think means the integration of national economies into the global financial system -- is that corrupt regimes now come in for heavy international flak. The spotlight on corruption moves around -- it was on China for a while, then shifted to Nigeria...

UBS: Growth Run Amok

Posted on July 18, 2008
We're exercising our Friday liberty to post a story that's not about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- at least not yet. It's about a world-class financial institution -- a market leader with 80,000 employees in 50 countries, the heavyweight champ of global wealth management -- that allowed its sales force to run wild and in the process trample numerous U...

Why We Keep Plugging

Posted on July 17, 2008
It's a familiar and unwelcome moment. Those on the other side of the table spot the FCPA compliance language for the first time:The joint venture and all its personnel shall comply in all respects with the requirements of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Unpeeling Opinion Procedure Releases

Posted on July 14, 2008
Our post about DOJ Release 08-03 -- which deals with the payment of promotional expenses to journalists from state-owned media in China -- drew this response from Frequent Reader . . .Interesting, but the value of the release is uncertain to commercial companies that cannot meet the stipulation that they "have no business pending with any PRC government agency...

A Gold Medal For Opinion Procedure Release 08-03

Posted on July 13, 2008
Foreign organizations in China have been vexed for years by the need to pay or reimburse Chinese journalists who attend local press events. The journalists can't afford to travel on their own and their employers don't reimburse them. But because most media outlets in the PRC are state-owned, the journalists are "foreign officials" under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Heading For The Hammock

Posted on July 10, 2008
It's the weekend again. Good thing. We need (and deserve) some rest. What serious mind, after all, wouldn't be exhausted pondering how Tampa Bay can be one and a half games clear of the Red Sox? Strangely, our spouse seems to hold no opinion on the subject...

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