My two interests, bribery and basketball (I am a Varsity head coach in Wisconsin and run my own club program), intersect in this recent indictment charging “26 individuals in connection with an alleged bribery and point-shaving scheme to fix NCAA Division I men’s basketball games and Chinese Basketball Association games.” (See here for the DOJ release).
This post focuses on the allegations concerning the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).
As highlighted in prior posts here and here, the 2016 SEC FCPA enforcement action against Las Vegas Sands as well as the 2017 DOJ FCPA enforcement action against Las Vegas Sands involved, in part, the CBA.
As stated by the SEC:
“In early 2007, the LVSC [Las Vegas Sands Corp.] President sought to purchase a professional basketball team in China, with the purported purpose being to improve LVSC’s image in China and to bring customers to the casinos because the team could play in the Venetian Macao’s sports arena. The team would wear jerseys with an image of a gold lion, which was the symbol of the Venetian Macao Casino. As the team could not put the name of a gaming company on the jerseys, the team was named “Wei Li Xin,” which translates to “good fortune” and sounds like “Venetian” when pronounced in Chinese. No research or marketing analysis was ever done in connection with the basketball team.
The Chinese Basketball Association (“CBA”), which falls under the PRC State General Administration of Sports (which in turn is organized directly under the State Council of the PRC), would not permit a gaming company to own a league team, and thus neither LVSC nor its relevant subsidiaries could purchase a team. Instead, the Consultant was used as a “beard” to buy the team, and the company entered into what was ostensibly a sponsorship agreement for the team.”
As indicated above, in the Las Vegas Sands enforcement action, the U.S. government essentially alleged that CBA was part of the Chinese government.
In this week’s indictment, the DOJ stated:
“The Chinese Basketball Association C’CBA’) was the governing body for
professional basketball in China and the name of the country’s top professional basketball league. The CBA comprised more than 300 players in its top men’s league and about 20 teams. which represented cities and corporations throughout China.”
As alleged by the DOJ:
“Beginning in or about September 2022, a group of individuals (“the
fixers”) worked together to recruit and bribe players to help influence or “fix” Chinese Basketball Association (‘CBA) men’s basketball games through “point shaving” during the 2022-2023 CBA season. The fixers bribed CBA players to underperform and help ensure their team failed to cover the spread in certain games and then, through various sportsbooks, arranged for large wagers to be placed on those games against that team.During the 2022-2023 CBA season, the fixers, including defendants MARVES FAIRLEY and SHANE HENNEN, recruited Antonio Blakeney, who was a player on the Jiangsu Dragons (“Jiangsu”) of the CBA, for their point-shaving scheme. Blakeney was one of the leading scorers in the CBA. Defendants FAIRLEY and HENNEN offered bribe payments to Blakeney in exchange for Blakeney underperforming in and influencing the outcome of CBA games involving Jiangsu. Blakeney agreed to participate in the scheme and then recruited other
players from Jiangsu to join the scheme, working together with the fixers to influence the outcome of Jiangsu games. The point-shaving scheme corrupted the integrity of CBA sporting contests and of the sportsbooks accepting wagers on those contests and caused sportsbooks and individual sports bettors to suffer financial losses.”
The indictment then alleges various examples of CBA men’s basketball games “fixed by the defendants.”
Query: are CBA players “foreign officials” under the FCPA? Could the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act apply to the alleged bribery scheme?
