Company Employees Receive FCPA Training
In running searches for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related content every day, 365 days a year, for sixteen years there is some interesting content I come across.
I don’t seem to recall though a company issuing a press release because its employees received FCPA training.
Until recently that is.
Dinant is an agribusiness and consumer packaged goods manufacturer in Central America and the Dominican Republic.
“Indicators Of Foreign Bribery”
The International Foreign Bribery Taskforce is made up of the Australian Federal Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, New Zealand Police, New Zealand Serious Fraud Office, United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office, National Crime Agency (UK) and the United States (US) Federal Bureau of Investigations).
The group recently released this document titled “Indicators of Foreign Bribery.”
As stated in this UK Serious Fraud Office release:
Size Matters, But To What Extent?
U.S. business organizations large and small are subject to the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Although the books and records and internal controls provisions only apply to issuers, issuers are not always large companies. These provisions make no explicit distinctions regarding the size of an issuer, but in the FCPA Guidance the DOJ and SEC sensibly acknowledge that a factor the enforcement agencies consider when evaluating an organization’s compliance program is the size of the organization. Specifically the Guidance states: ” small- and medium-size enterprises likely will have different compliance programs from large multi-national corporations, a fact DOJ and SEC take into account when evaluating companies’ compliance programs.”
Gaining Comfort With Uncertainty
I have been teaching Foreign Corrupt Practices Act content for approximately 20 years (as a lawyer, as a professor in a traditional classroom setting or online, at my FCPA Institute, and otherwise).
Many individuals come to the FCPA topic expecting to learn bright-line rules and are initially disappointed upon discovering that there are few FCPA bright-line rules. Thus, as highlighted below, an initial learning curve associated with the FCPA is gaining comfort with uncertainty.
Issues To Consider From The McKinsey Enforcement Action
This prior post highlighted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against McKinsey and Company Africa (Pty) Ltd (“MCKINSEY AFRICA”), a wholly owned and wholly controlled subsidiary of McKinsey & Company (an international consulting firm) concerning bribery schemes in South Africa.
This prior post highlighted how the matter was yet another FCPA enforcement action related to South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Program.
This post highlights additional issues to consider.
Timeline