“Corruption Currents, the Wall Street Journal’s corruption blog, will dig into the ever-present and ever-changing world of corporate corruption. It will be a source of news, analysis and commentary for those who earn a living by finding corruption or by avoiding it.” Apparently corruption has become such a big topic that the Wall Street Journal … Read more »
Category: Bribery and Corruption
Adequate Procedures to Prevent Bribery in the UK
On 14 September 2010, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice issued its Consultation Paper on what might be “adequate procedures” prevent bribery. Under section 9 of the Bribery Act, the only defense against criminal liability for a commercial organization which has “failed to prevent bribery” is that the organization had adequate procedures” to prevent bribery. … Read more »
Michael Lewis, Greece, and Corruption
Michael Lewis has moved from Wall Street, to baseball, the left tackle, Iceland, the credit collapse and on to Greece. He takes a look at Greece’s financial crisis in the October issue of Vanity Fair: Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds. One issue is the debt hangover. Greece has about $400 billion in outstanding government debt … Read more »
FCPA Release 10-03: Foreign Agents as Foreign Officials
The Department of Justice released its latest FCPA Opinion Release. The requesting company for this opinion release is stepping into a situation full of FCPA red flags. In the end, the DOJ opined that it would not bring an enforcement action based on the safeguards put in place by the company. The company is involved … Read more »
FCPA Opinion Procedure Release 10-02
A continuing quirk of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is the ability to ask the Department of Justice whether a particular set of facts would be a violation of the Act. Given all of the recent FCPA activity I expected there to be an uptick in Opinion Procedure Releases under the FCPA. So far that … Read more »
UK Bribery Act Delayed
When I saw there was a press release from the UK’s Ministry of Justice, I was expecting an announcement of what it meant for a commercial organization to have “adequate procedures” to prevent bribery. That being the only affirmative defense under the Bribery Bill. It turns out that implementation of the Bribery Act will be … Read more »
It Does Not Take Much to Get You Into FCPA Trouble
The recent FCPA enforcement actions brought against Veraz Networks, Inc. shows that it does not take huge piles of money to get in trouble. Veraz admitted to making improper payments of only $40,000. Not that $40,000 is an insignificant amount. It just pales in comparison to the huge dollars we have seen on other FCPA … Read more »
FCPA Opinion Procedure Release 10-01
The Department of Justice released its latest Opinion Procedure Release under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It’s one of the quirks of the FCPA that you can ask the Department of Justice whether a particular situation would be a violation of the FCPA. This opinion is also quirky. The company requesting the opinion was in … Read more »
Bribery in Britain
The British government is working on a new Bribery Bill “to reform the criminal law of bribery to provide for a new consolidated scheme of bribery offenses to cover bribery both in the United Kingdom (UK) and abroad.” The Bribery Bill would replaces the offenses under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention … Read more »
Daimler Charged with FCPA Violations
Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, has been charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Department of Justice accuses the company of engaging in a long-standing practice of paying bribes worth tens of millions of dollars to foreign officials in over 22 countries. There is an April 1 hearing in U.S. … Read more »