International Law

We've Moved

Posted on November 14, 2009
The FCPA Blog has moved to a new site.Please visit (and bookmark) us here.We're at fcpablog.com.

Novak Pleads Guilty

Posted on November 12, 2009
A former consultant for Willbros International Inc. (WII), a subsidiary of Houston-based Willbros Group Inc. (Willbros), pleaded guilty Thursday to engaging in a conspiracy to pay more than $6 million in bribes to government officials of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and officials from a Nigerian political party ...

Frederic Bourke's Big Bet

Posted on November 11, 2009
Take it for a spin. We've launched a new-look FCPA Blog. Actually, the new model looks a lot like this one but with navigation features for improved handling. We know there are a couple of tweaks to make in the new site. Our webmaster, who's so young he still takes afternoon naps, will be fixing them soon...

Blackwater And The FCPA

Posted on November 10, 2009
The New York Times on Tuesday alleged here that executives at the private military security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that might have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

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Bourke Gets A Year In Prison

Posted on November 10, 2009
Frederic Bourke, the American entrepreneur who led a charmed life and whose prosecution brought new prominence to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $1 million for investing in a bribe-tainted deal in Azerbaijan and then lying to FBI agents about it...

Toss Jefferson's FCPA Conspiracy Count

Posted on November 09, 2009
Before getting to William Jefferson, this reminder: Frederic Bourke is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan today (Tuesday, November 10) at 2:30 pm. He could be jailed for up to ten years for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and lying to federal investigators...

A Tweet Too Far?

Posted on November 08, 2009
Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger (left), made a very strange announcement. He confirmed on his Twitter page that the U.S. government had denied a visa to Kenya's attorney general Amos Wako. What's strange is that as far as we know, it's the first time an American official has ever revealed a visa determination under Presidential Proclamation 7750...

Gotham City East And West

Posted on November 05, 2009
In China's western municipality of Chongqing, a special deployment of 25,000 police officers was called in to fight organized crime. Chongqing city proper has around five million people but the region-- called the "municipality" -- has closer to 32 million (California's population is about 36 million)...

The FCPA's Imperialist Myth

Posted on November 04, 2009
Elizabeth Spahn (left), a professor at the New England School of Law, stopped by this week. She left a comment about Andy Spalding's latest post. In it, she cited her recent article that asks: Why is there so little legal scholarship regarding international bribery? Why aren't law professors training their students on the issue? Why, she asks, don?t legal educators want to talk about international anti-corruption initiatives?The answer, she says, is tied up with false notions in the West about legal imperialism...

Professor Podgor Pops The Question

Posted on November 03, 2009
With so much to lose by going to trial, how many organizations and people will plead guilty to white collar crimes they didn't commit? Ellen Podgor (left) of Stetson University College of Law and the White Collar Crime Prof Blog asks that question in her latest essay, "White Collar Innocence: Irrelevant in the High Stakes Risk Game...

How Appealing Are Bourke's Chances?

Posted on November 02, 2009
On the subject of Frederic Bourke -- the wealthy entrepreneur convicted in July of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and lying to FBI agents -- we now know what issues his lawyers plan to raise on appeal. Most relate to what Bourke knew and intended -- his mens rea...

The FCPA's Thwarted Intent

Posted on November 01, 2009
The first time we heard from Andy Spalding (left), a lawyer on a year-long Fulbright Research Grant in Mumbai, India, he floored us with the idea that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act causes corruption and hurts poor people. We just heard from him again, this time about the way the Justice Department explains the purpose of the FCPA and approaches enforcement...

Make That Sixteen . . .

Posted on October 29, 2009
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act researcher Cody Worthington responded to our post Their Days Are Numbered. To our list of thirteen people waiting to be sentenced for violating or conspiring to violate the FCPA, he suggested we add three more. Here they are:Joshua Cantor, the president of American Bank Note Holographics...

Senegal's Big Send-Off

Posted on October 28, 2009
In Dakar, the capital of the West African country of Senegal, the IMF's regional representative was given a farewell dinner two months ago. After three years in the post, Alex Segura was heading back to his native Spain. As the evening ended, President Abdoulaye Wade handed Segura a going-away gift...

Their Days Are Numbered

Posted on October 27, 2009
We count at least thirteen people waiting to be sentenced for violating or conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Both offenses carry a prison term of up to five years. And for substantive offenses the fine can be up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain produced by the bribes...

Russian Graft: The Video

Posted on October 26, 2009
Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest foreign investor in the Russian stock market, has accused police officials, bankers, judges and lawyers of working with gangsters to steal $230 million from the company and using its documents to obtain another $230 million from the Russian treasury through fraudulent tax refunds...

Halliburton May Face U.K. Charges

Posted on October 25, 2009
Halliburton disclosed Friday in its latest SEC filing that the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) may bring civil claims or criminal charges against it under various British laws. In February this year, Halliburton and its former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root LLC, admitted paying Nigerian officials at least $182 million in bribes for contracts awarded between 1995 and 2004 to build liquefied natural gas facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria...

Trees Fall To Graft

Posted on October 22, 2009
In Malaysia this week, four forestry department officials, including the director, an officer and two rangers, were arrested for taking a $30,000 bribe. In exchange, they allegedly awarded illegal logging concessions. Malaysia has prized hardwoods growing in protected areas in and around its rain forests...

How BAE Got Caught

Posted on October 21, 2009
Investigative reporters may be disappearing from newsrooms everywhere, but they still have an important role to play in holding institutions and people accountable for overseas bribery. Rob Evans of the U.K. Guardian contributed an essay to TI's Global Corruption Report 2009 here...

Mandarin Monkey Business

Posted on October 20, 2009
In Dongguan, a Chinese city on the Pearl River Delta, graft busters are using a powerful weapon against corrupt public officials: their mistresses. During a recent period, 32 out of 38 corruption cases handled by the city's prosecutors were based on complaints or confessions from girlfriends of married office-holders...

Goodbye To Waivers? Not So Fast . . .

Posted on October 19, 2009
Companies facing criminal indictment for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other federal laws have a sure-fire way to help themselves. They can cooperate. Those found to have ?fully cooperated? under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are entitled to reduced penalties; most of them escape with a deferred or non-prosecution agreement...

The Story Of Graft

Posted on October 18, 2009
Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2009 is here. At 462 pages, it may be the most complete account of global corruption and anti-bribery efforts ever assembled. Reference books like this are both important and fun; you don't need to read from front to back, first page to last...

Who Owns The War?

Posted on October 15, 2009
We've talked before about corruption in Afghanistan. In debating what to do there, some argue that Iraq was just as corrupt, yet the surge still worked. Was Iraq just as corrupt? It looks like it. Both countries are ranked near the bottom of the Corruption Perception Index: Iraq at 178 and Afghanistan at 176...

Clueless In Quito

Posted on October 14, 2009
Our assigned subject is bribery abroad. So naturally some have wondered why we haven't talked about Chevron's legal tangle in Ecuador and accusations it might have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act there. A couple of readers -- apparently from Ecuador -- even sent us what they said was evidence against the American oil company...

Bourke Denied New Trial

Posted on October 13, 2009
Frederic Bourke's attempt to overturn his conviction and obtain a new trial has failed. He was found guilty in July of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act under 18 U.S.C. § 371 and making false statements in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001...

AGCO Resolves Iraq Bribe Charges

Posted on September 30, 2009
Agricultural equipment-maker AGCO Corporation will pay nearly $20 million in criminal and civil penalties to resolve bribery charges related to kickbacks it paid under the U.N. oil for food program. The Duluth, Ga.-based firm agreed with the Justice Department to pay a criminal penalty of $1...

SFO To Request Prosecution Of BAE

Posted on September 30, 2009
The U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office announced today that it intends to seek the Attorney General's consent to prosecute BAE Systems for offenses relating to overseas corruption. The agency said it will submit its request to the Attorney General "when the SFO considers it is ready to proceed...

Breakthrough In Britain

Posted on September 29, 2009
British firm Mabey & Johnson Ltd was sentenced last week by an English court for overseas corruption and violations of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. The bridge-building specialist will pay £6.6 million in criminal fines and related assessments...

Supply-Side Corruption

Posted on September 28, 2009
The 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) from Transparency International attempts to measure how much corruption the major economies export to other countries. TI hired Gallup International to survey 2,742 executives from 26 countries (at least 100 interviews per country) between 5 August and 29 October 2008...

The Statecraft Of Enforcement

Posted on September 27, 2009
Should the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act be used to punish nations that don't behave the way the United States wants them to? Michael Jacobson (left) from the Washington Institute thinks so. In the September 24 issue of Policy Watch, he proposes targeted enforcement of the FCPA against non-U...

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