Category: Transparency International

Compliance Professionals Should Take The Corruption Perceptions Index With A Grain Of Salt

Transparency International, a global civil society organization dedicated to the fight against corruption, recently released it annual Corruption Perceptions Index (“CPI”).  (See here for TI’s release).

As stated by TI, the CPI “scores and ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be” and 168 countries were ranked with Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Norway topping the list (i.e. low levels of perceived corruption) and Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, and Angola on the bottom of the list (i.e. high levels of perceived corruption).

The CPI generates a lot of media coverage and is a popular tool for business organizations in ranking risk (and thus prioritizing compliance). However, for the reasons highlighted in this post compliance professionals should take the CPI with a grain of salt.

For starters, just because compliance professionals should take the CPI with a grain of salt, does not mean that the CPI (or other similar rankings) should be ignored.

Indeed, in a rare appellate court decision in the FCPA space, the Second Circuit in the Bourke case listed circumstances which provided “ample evidence” to support Bourke’s trial conviction on a conscious avoidance theory under the FCPA’s third-party payment provisions and specifically stated that “Bourke was aware of how pervasive corruption was in Azerbaijan generally.”

Nevertheless, query whether the CPI is a reliable or meaningful measure of the specific risks specific business organizations face when competing in the global marketplace for the following reasons.

• The CPI is merely a survey, and a survey of perceptions at that. This is not a dig on the CPI itself, after all how does measure an issue like bribery and corruption (particularly since there is no universal definition of these terms). To its credit, TI itself recognizes the limitations of the CPI. As stated by TI, “there is no meaningful way to assess absolute levels of corruption in countries or territories on the basis of hard empirical data.” Moreover, TI rightly acknowledges that the CPI does not tell the full story of corruption in a country because it “is limited in scope, capturing perceptions of the extent of corruption in the public sector from the perspective of business people and country experts.”

• The CPI is composed of distinctions without differences. Each country in the CPI is assigned a numerical score between 100 (the best score) and 0 (the worst score). Sure there is a meaningful distinction between Denmark (91) and Somalia (8), but you probably did not need the CPI to inform this perspective. However, as a practical matter is there a meaningful distinction between a score of 39 (El Salvador) and 30 (Tanzania)? Hardly, but these scores result in a substantial difference in the CPI rankings (El Salvador – 72nd and Tanzania – 117th).

• The CPI is country specific, not province or region specific. We all recognize that certain states in the U.S., indeed certain cities within those states, have higher levels of actual or perceived corruption and the same is true in foreign countries. However, the CPI score is only on a country basis and is not province or region specific. In short, bribery and corruption is often localized and thus the CPI can both induce complacency (i.e. the business is fine because the country’s overall score is fine, even though a specific region in which the company operates may have higher levels of actual or perceived corruption) as well as result in needless worry (i.e. while the country overall has higher levels of actual or perceived corruption, the specific region in which the company operates may have substantially less).

• At its core, FCPA risk is the function of specific business actors (employees and agents) coming into contact with specific foreign officials, in the context of specific foreign business conditions. None of these factors are adequately captured by the CPI. Indeed, one can easily imagine a scenario where because of the industry, because of the product or service, and because of the go-to-market strategy, Denmark presents more of a risk than Somalia.

• The CPI perpetuates stereotypes. No surprise that Finland is, as it always has been, atop the CPI list and that Kenya is, as it always has been, near the bottom of the list. Yet to state the obvious, there are millions of hard-working, honest and ethical people in Kenya. On the flip side, there are some dishonest and unethical people in Finland.

In short, while I enjoy each time this year looking at the CPI map, I don’t think it is a very useful tool for business organizations when adopting policies and procedures designed to minimize FCPA risk.

FCPA risk is best minimized through a risk assessment unique to a business organization in which the following questions provide a good starting point.

• Who are the company’s customers or potential customers in each country?  Is the customer a government (whether federal, state, or local) department, agency or instrumentality?  Does a government department, agency, or instrumentality, or individual associated with such units, have an ownership or equity interest in the customer?

• How does the company do business and/or interact with customers or potential customers in the country?  Does the company use third parties in the foreign countries?

• How does the company’s product enter and exit the country? Does the company use the services of a customs broker or freight forwarder?

• What licenses, permits, or certifications does the company need to do business in the country?  As to each license, permit or certification, how does the company obtain such approvals?

• Is the company subject to other unique forms of government regulation in the country?  What other points of contact does the company have with foreign government in the country (such as tax and immigration authorities)?

Are Transparency International’s Defense Company Rankings Defensible?

Imagine FCPA Professor ranked the “Top FCPA Law Firms” and one factor in the rankings was whether the law firms either donated to FCPA Professor and/or had lawyers “graduate” from the FCPA Institute.

I sure hope you would look askance at such rankings because they are based on subjective factors that have little relevance to the substantive issue being ranked.

Recently Transparency International UK released this “Defense Companies Anti Corruption Index 2015” – an index that attempted to “assess the ethics and anticorruption programs of 163 defense companies from 47 countries using publicly available information.”  (See also here).

The only companies to receive an “A” ranking were Bechtel, Fluor, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

What’s interesting though is that each of these companies are substantial contributors to Transparency International (“TI”).  (See here).

This of course does not automatically mean that Transparency International had a conflict of interest in ranking these four companies. Perhaps the companies are just really committed to Transparency International regardless of whether its financial contributions to the organization could impact such things as the rankings.

However, contributing and/or belonging to Transparency International did indeed elevate a company’s score in the recent rankings.

Such details are found deep within specific company reports.

For instance this specific company report indicates that a factor impacting the company’s “Leadership, Governance and Organization” score was “based on public information, there is evidence that the company is a member of TI-USA …”.  Similarly, this specific company’s score was elevated because “based on public information, there is evidence that the company …  is a member of Transparency International Norway.”

Transparency International is not the only organization that promotes anti-corruption or business ethics with a significant focus on anti-corruption.  Surely, Transparency International factored in a company’s membership or association with all other reputable groups?

Apparently not.

For instance, this specific company report states:

“Based on public information, there is no readily available evidence that the company belongs to one or more national or international initiatives that promote anti-corruption or business ethics with a significant focus on anti-corruption. TI notes the company’s membership of TRACE, but this alone is insufficient evidence” concerning the question of whether “the company belong to one or more national or international initiatives that promote anti-corruption or business ethics with a significant focus on anti-corruption?”

In short, it is troubling that giving money and/or being a member of Transparency International impacted Transparency International’s recent rankings.  It leaves the impression that Transparency International’s scores are a reflection, at least in part, of cooperation in Transparency International initiatives rather than a strict reflection of a specific company’s compliance efforts.

For prior posts critical of Transparency International rankings, etc. see here, here, here, here and here.

Friday Roundup

Scrutiny alerts, quotable, and for the reading stack.  It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Scrutiny Alerts

Nortek

Nortek Inc.  recently disclosed:

“As part of our routine internal audit activities, Nortek, Inc. (the “Company” or “we”) discovered certain questionable hospitality, gift and payment practices, and other expenses at the Company’s subsidiary, Linear Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. (“Linear China”), which are inconsistent with the Company’s policies and raise concerns under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and perhaps under other applicable anti-corruption laws. The Company initiated an internal investigation into these practices and payments with the assistance of outside counsel. On January 7, 2015 and January 8, 2015, respectively, we voluntarily contacted the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to advise both agencies of our internal investigation. The Company intends to cooperate with any SEC or DOJ investigation into these matters. The Company takes these matters very seriously and is committed to conducting its business in compliance with all applicable laws. Based on information known at this time, we currently believe that the amount of the questionable expenses and payments is not material with respect to the Company’s financial condition or results of operations. However, at this time, we are unable to predict, what, if any, action may be taken by the DOJ or SEC or any penalties or remedial measures these agencies may seek, but intend to cooperate with both agencies. Any determination that our operations or activities are not in compliance with existing laws or regulations could result in the imposition of fines, civil and criminal penalties, and equitable remedies, including disgorgement or injunctive relief. Nortek’s Linear China location manufactures products primarily for our Security and Control Solutions Segment and does not sell products to third parties.”

Sony

Last week’s Friday Roundup highlighted the FCPA scrutiny of Sony and other Hollywood film studies in China.

“Sony Corp.’s entertainment unit investigated its Indian operations for possible legal violations including bidding fraud and kickbacks, according to internal e-mails released by hackers, highlighting challenges the company has faced in the country. Sony enlisted Ernst & Young to look into its businesses in the country and uncovered potential evidence of wrongdoing, according to the e-mails. In one case, investigators found that a joint venture between Sony and Discovery Communications Inc. (DISCA) may have engaged in fraudulent bids, kickbacks and excessive handouts to government officials …”

According to the article, there are various “areas of concern” including: “potential gifts and entertainment of Indian government officials” such as providing tickets to IPL cricket matches to public servants, as well as laptop bags that were requested as gifts for government officials during the Diwali festival.”

“This really shows that Transparency International is not as pure as people think. Transparency International’s own policy forbids accepting money from corrupt companies. Period. Even though the Siemens bribery scandal broke in 2006, the company is still being investigated in more than 20 countries — in Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. All over the world, Siemens is still under suspicion.”

In this recent speech, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sung-Hee Suh spoke “about the Criminal Division’s white-collar criminal enforcement priorities now and in the coming year.” Among other things, Suh stated:  

“The prosecution of individuals—including corporate executives—for criminal wrongdoing continues to be a high priority for the department.  That is not to say that we will be looking to charge individuals to the exclusion of corporations. However, corporations do not act criminally, but for the actions of individuals.  And, the Criminal Division intends to prosecute those individuals, whether they are sitting on a sales desk or in a corporate suite. It is within this framework that we are also seeking to reshape the conversation about corporate cooperation to some extent.  Corporations too often overlook a key consideration that the department has long expressed in our Principles of Federal Prosecution, which guide our prosecutorial decisions:  That is a corporation’s willingness to cooperate in the investigation of its culpable executives. Of course, corporations—like individuals—are not required to cooperate.  A corporation may make a business or strategic decision not to cooperate.  However, if a corporation does elect to cooperate with the department, it should be mindful of the fact that the department does not view voluntary disclosure as true cooperation, if the company avoids identifying the individuals who are criminally responsible for the corporate misconduct. Even the identification of culpable individuals is not true cooperation, if the company intentionally fails to locate and provide facts and evidence at their disposal that implicate those individuals.  The Criminal Division will be looking long and hard at corporations who purport to cooperate, but fail to provide timely and full information about the criminal misconduct of their executives. In the past year, the Criminal Division has demonstrated its continued commitment to the prosecution of individual wrongdoers in the corporate context.  I will highlight a few examples. On the FCPA front, since 2009, we have convicted 50 individuals in FCPA and FCPA-related cases, and resolved criminal cases against 59 companies with penalties and forfeiture of almost $4 billion.  Within the last two years alone, we have charged, resolved by plea, or unsealed cases against 26 individuals, and 14 corporations have resolved FCPA violations with combined penalties and forfeiture of more than $1.6 billion. As just one example, the department unsealed charges against the former co-CEOs and general counsel of PetroTiger Ltd., a BVI oil and gas company with offices in New Jersey, for allegedly paying bribes to an official in Colombia in exchange for assistance in securing approval for an oil services contract worth $39 million. The general counsel and one of the CEOs already pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud charges, and the other former CEO is headed for trial. This case was brought to the attention of the department through voluntary disclosure by PetroTiger, which cooperated with the department’s investigation.  Notably, no charges of any kind were filed against PetroTiger. An example on the flip side is the Alstom case, an FCPA investigation stemming from a widespread scheme involving tens of millions of dollars in bribes spanning the globe, including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Bahamas. When the Criminal Division learned of the misconduct and launched an investigation, Alstom opted not to cooperate at the outset.  What ensued was an extensive multi-tool investigation involving recordings, interviews, subpoenas, MLAT requests, the use of cooperating witnesses, and more. As of today, four individual Alstom executives have been charged; three of them have pleaded guilty; Alstom’s consortium partner, Marubeni, was charged and pleaded guilty; and Alstom pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a record $772 million fine.  And that only accounts for the charges in the United States. As I have said, we want corporations to cooperate, and will provide appropriate incentives.  But, we will not rely exclusively upon corporate cooperation to make our cases against the individual wrongdoers.

[…]

To do these complex, international investigations, we are increasingly coordinating with domestic and foreign regulators and law enforcement counterparts, some of whom are on this panel today. In working with our foreign counterparts, we have developed growing sophistication and experience in a variety of areas, including analyzing foreign data privacy laws and corporations’ claims that overseas documents cannot be provided to investigators in the United States. We are also building and relying upon on our relationships with our foreign counterparts to gather evidence, locate individuals overseas, conduct parallel investigations of similar conduct, and, when appropriate, coordinate the timing and scope of resolutions. Yes, just as we are coordinating our investigations, we are likewise willing to coordinate our resolutions, including accounting for the corporate monetary penalties paid in other jurisdictions when appropriate. This is all to say that you should expect to see these meaningful, multinational investigations and prosecutions of corporations and individuals to continue.”

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These pages have frequently highlighted how the root cause of bribery and corruption is often foreign trade barriers and distortions.

Jeremy Douglas (who leads the United Nation’s regional Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific) was thus spot-on in this recent Q&A.

“Q: How do western companies get themselves into trouble in the region?

A: … What we see in the region is that bureaucracies and government structures tend to be highly personalized. People are ensconced in key positions i.e. government procurement positions, or people in the position to give government contracts, let’s say building a power plant. [These officials] are in powerful positions to ease up administrative procedures and accelerate red tape and issue licenses. So companies can be drawn into scenarios where they are paying facilitation fees or their intermediaries are paying facilitation fees. [Much of] Southeast Asia doesn’t have a lot of the regulatory structure–the checks and balances you have in the [U.S. or Canada] so companies come in and run into very powerful persons in those structures, and they know if they can influence these officials, they can get what they need to win business.”

Reading Stack

“Transparency International pioneered the corruption index in the early 1990s. They rank countries from most corrupt to the least corrupt. And they are based on public perception – perception of business people and experts from outside the country. They come up with these numbers that are attractive to the press. And it has put Transparency International on the map. They are simple minded surveys. But they don’t really mean a lot. The idea of corruption in these surveys is simple bribery — cash changing hands. It’s the proverbial cash in the piano or the freezer. Corruption is reduced to bribery. In fact, today’s most savvy power brokers are engaged in a kind of corruption that is much more subtle and more difficult to detect. Today’s most corrupt players, at least in the West, don’t need this quid pro quo corruption. They are far beyond that. That’s for the little players. That’s for the small fry. That’s a key point of Unaccountable.”

*****

This Op-Ed about Chinese law enforcement (in the corruption space and otherwise) states: “China’s leaders must realize that even the perception that they are targeting foreign businesses disproportionately can create great harm.”  Against this backdrop, is the following fact.  8 of the top 10 FCPA enforcement actions (in terms of settlement amounts) have been against foreign companies and are often based on sparse jurisdictional allegations.

*****

From the Singapore Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau

“Public Officers Rejecting Bribe Offers

Friday Roundup

Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index, monitor issues, scrutiny alert, Chinese SOEs, SEC press releases, hot, and for the reading stack.  It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Transparency International’s Latest Corruption Perceptions Index

Transparency International, a global civil society organization dedicated to the fight against corruption, released recently the 20th edition of its Corruption Perceptions Index (“CPI”).  (See here for TI’s release).  As stated by TI, the CPI “measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide” and 175 countries are ranked with Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland (topping the list – i.e. low levels of perceived corruption) and South Sudan, Afghanistan, Sudan, North Korea and Somalia (on the bottom of the list – i.e. high levels of perceived corruption).

TI’s CPI is a popular tool on which many business organizations rank perceived risk, but query whether the CPI is a reliable or meaningful measure of the specific risks specific business organizations face when competing in the global marketplace?

For starters, perceptions are just that, perceptions.  To be sure, there are countless honest and ethical people living in Somalia just as there are countless dishonest and unethical people living in Denmark.  Moreover, at its core, FCPA risk is the function of specific business actors (employees and agents) coming into contact with specific foreign officials, in the context of specific foreign business conditions.  These risk points are often industry specific and within a country are often region specific.  None of these factors, or very few, are captured by the CPI.

Thus, while I enjoy each time this year looking at the CPI map, I don’t think it is a very useful tool for business organizations when adopting policies and procedures designed to minimize FCPA risk.

Monitor Issues

An interesting blurb here from Courthouse News Service.

“Siemens and a monitor charged with keeping watch over the German conglomerate’s compliance with a settlement agreement over federal corruption and bribery charges can fight to keep records of that agreement out of the hands of reporters, a federal judge ruled. (See 2014 WL 6817009). 100Reporters – a press outlet with a self-proclaimed mission to “cover corruption of all sorts” – sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act this past summer, seeking records of Siemens’ compliance with a 2008 settlement of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Siemens pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a precedent-setting $1.6 billion penalty to U.S. and EU authorities to settle charges that it routinely used bribes and slush funds to secure massive public works contracts around the world. Part of the settlement included four-year compliance monitoring by Dr. Theo Waigel, who was given broad access to Siemens’ confidential and commercially sensitive information and records to make annual reports to the Justice Department. The DOJ closed the compliance monitoring in 2012, determining that Siemens had “satisfied its obligations under the plea agreement.” After the Justice Department denied 100Reporters’ request for compliance monitoring documents – including the four annual reports from Waigel – and the group sued, Siemens and Waigel demanded to get involved, citing the right of intervention. For Siemens’ part, the company argued that the reports contained confidential and proprietary information not fit for public consumption. Waigel complained that his personal reputation – and the unfettered access of future compliance monitors – was on the line because he promised Siemens confidentiality while examining the company’s records and delivering his reports to the Justice Department.  Both Siemens and Waigel have a legal interest in fighting 100Reporters’ FOIA request, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras held in a 31-page ruling issued Wednesday. Specifically, Contreras dismissed 100Reporters’ claims that Siemens, Waigel and the DOJ are all fighting from the same legal position. “Requiring Siemens to monitor the DOJ’s litigation posture from the sidelines until Siemens disagrees with a decision by the agency is inefficient and impractical; indeed, Siemens likely would have limited, if any, insight into the DOJ’s strategy during the litigation, and once Siemens did learn of a hypothetical shift in the DOJ’s position, such as a decision to release a specific category of materials, it might be too late for Siemens to undue any damage done,” Contreras wrote. Furthermore, not allowing Siemens and Waigel to intervene now – and forcing them to wait months or years until the Justice Department has done its withholding analysis – would put them both in danger of missing federal filing deadlines, the judge said. The potential injury to Siemens if the documents are released is both “particularized and sufficiently imminent,” Contreras wrote. “It is not surprising, then, that 100Reporters cannot cite a single FOIA case in which a court denied on standing grounds the application of a prospective intervenor whose own confidential materials were the clear subject of the FOIA request,” he added. Contreras also rejected calls by 100Reporters to limit Siemens’ involvement solely to FOIA exemption 4, which bars release of confidential and commercially sensitive information. “A more functional and practical approach is required, and fatally, 100Reporters fails to offer any concrete or realistic consequences to this litigation from Siemens’s (or Waigel’s) intervention that might require the court to impose a limitation on the scope of the defenses that an intervenor may raise as this case, which still is in its infancy, proceeds to the merits,” Contreras wrote. The judge refused 100Reporters’ claims that allowing Siemens and Waigel to get involved would unnecessarily delay the proceedings, advising the group in a footnote “raise such concerns then,” if and when any delays occur.”

The California Lawyer goes in-depth in an article titled “The Secret Life of a Corporate Monitor.”

“Without naming the subjects of his monitoring, Dan Ray talked generally about the highly secretive world of government-appointed corporate monitors, where progress reports are confidential, judges rarely get involved, and the DOJ alone determines whether corporations have complied with terms of the agreements. Monitors are not government employees or agents, and they do not contract with or receive payment from the government. Fees generally are negotiated between the corporation and the monitor.”

Through some basic internet research, it is not that difficult to figure out which companies Ray monitored.  (See here, here and here).

Scrutiny Alert

The Financial Times reports:

“In a Florida court on Tuesday, a judge granted a request by US prosecutors to seize an ice cream cooler, a walk-in freezer, dozens of other pieces of catering equipment and three properties belonging to a woman called Mamadie Touré. It was just one of a ceaseless stream of such requests, through which the authorities seek forfeiture of what they say are ill-gotten assets. But this was no ordinary woman and no ordinary case. Ms Touré is the widow of Lansana Conté, a dictator who ruled the resource-rich but dirt poor west African state of Guinea for 24 years before his death in 2008. And US prosecutors’ interest in Ms Touré runs to much more than a few refrigerators and some Jacksonville real estate. Their court filing in the forfeiture request spells out the details of a two-year US investigation into one of the most wide-ranging cases of alleged corruption in recent years.  Prosecutors alleged in that filing, lodged last week and seen by the Financial Times, that Ms Touré received bribes totalling $5.3m to help a mining company win iron-ore rights in Guinea. The rights in question were to exploit the northern half of a hillside called Simandou, considered the planet’s richest virgin deposit of iron ore. The company involved is not named in the filing. But references to documents published in a Guinean inquiry, to the timing of the award of the mining rights and to a separate criminal case make it obvious that the company is BSG Resources, the mining arm of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s family conglomerate.”

Chinese SOEs

An interesting article recently in the Wall Street Journal.  According to the article:

“At the end of 2013, China had about 155,000 firms owned by central, provincial and local governments, according to the Ministry of Finance.  Beijing itself directly controls less than 120 of the biggest and most strategically significant industrial companies, which are responsible for building the world’s largest nuclear reactors and most extensive high speed rail network, buying up mining and agricultural resources overseas, and spreading Chinese goodwill with infrastructure projects across the developing world. […] Many smaller state-owned firms make goods with no obvious strategic significance, like spirits and toothpaste …”.

The article contains an interesting chart comparing six China SOEs with U.S. counterparts.  According to the chart, the six SOEs have approximately 2.6 million employees.

SEC Press Releases

Russell Ryan (King & Spalding and former assistant director of enforcement at the SEC ) returns to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page with this dandy piece titled “Get the SEC Out of the PR Business.”  He begins:

“Press releases are par for the course when the Securities and Exchange Commission files a case in federal court that it must later prove to a judge or jury. But the agency is increasingly shunting cases into its own administrative proceedings, where it initiates the prosecution and ultimately decides guilt or innocence—along with the severity of any sanctions—subject to only limited review in court. Given the SEC’s peculiar quasi-judicial role in these cases, you might think the agency would refrain from gratuitously stoking prehearing publicity against the accused. Think again. The SEC now routinely issues press releases when it files charges in administrative cases it will eventually decide. This practice calls into question the agency’s ability to decide those cases fairly and impartially.”

[…]

“SEC releases also stray beyond a fair and accurate summary of agency action. Many confuse what happened by asserting—often in the headline or lead sentence—that the SEC “charged” the accused with wrongdoing. But at this initial stage only SEC staff employees, typically from the enforcement division, have “charged” any wrongdoing. Commissioners, at least in theory, have merely scheduled a hearing to determine whether the employees can prove their charges—a determination the commissioners are supposed to make after an administrative judge conducts the hearing and makes a preliminary decision. Not surprisingly, media reports often reinforce the misperception that SEC commissioners are prosecuting these cases rather than deciding them. One of the most troubling features of SEC prehearing press releases is the partiality they betray in favor of agency prosecutors over the accused. In virtually all cases, the SEC allows its prosecuting employees not only to ghostwrite the official press release but also to insert gratuitous quotations that embellish the formal accusations with more colorful words and phrases like “tricks,” “calculated fraud,” “reaping substantial profits,” and “choosing profits over compliance.” The accused is never extended similar courtesies. When the SEC initiates enforcement action administratively rather than in court, it should embrace its primary role as impartial decision maker. That means resisting the urge to stoke prehearing publicity and maintaining strict neutrality in both fact and appearance. By failing to do so, the SEC risks having administrative fines and other sanctions swept aside if a court someday concludes, quite reasonably, that agency press releases plausibly suggest prejudgment of cases or lack of impartiality. The agency may consider that scenario unlikely. But given its determination to prosecute more cases administratively, that may not be a risk worth taking.”

Hot

You probably already knew that FCPA and related practices are hot.  But just in case you need another reminder, see here.  The latest edition of “What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession” contains the following under the “hot” category.

“Anti-corruption. Larger U.S. firms continue to increase enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, leading to more prosecutions. The U.K., China, Brazil and Canada have all enacted anti-bribery laws in the past few years and are now increasing investigations.”

You can elevate your FCPA knowledge and practical experience by attending the FCPA Institute in Miami (Jan. 12-13, 2015). Join other firm lawyers, in-house counsel, auditing professionals and others already registered for the FCPA Institute – Miami by clicking here to register.  CLE credit is available.

Reading Stack

The lastest edition of Debevoise & Plimpton’s always informative FCPA Report is here.

From Foley & Lardner attorney Aaron Murphy and Daniel Seltzer (Senior Director, Anticorruption for Accenture) “The End of Whac-A-Mole Compliance:  A Global Approach to Anti-Corruption Actions.”

*****

A good weekend to all.

“Countering Small Bribes” – Nice Words, We’ve Heard Them Before, But They Are Wrong

Today’s post is from Professor Bruce Bean (Michigan State University College of Law).  Prior to academia, Bean had a diverse practice career including at various law firms and in-house counsel positions.

*****

As FCPA Professor recently highlighted, Transparency International UK released a new publication, “Countering Small Bribes – Principles and Good Practice Guidance for Dealing with Small Bribes including Facilitation Payments.” (See here.)  For once, TI has it all wrong!

This publication focuses on “grease,” “tea money,”  “facilitation payments.”  These terms describe small payments, and while no one knows how small these may be, such payments are common in the real world.  “Countering Small Bribes” discusses these in 44 pages and prescribes how such “bribes” can be eliminated.

TI begins by repeating a mantra regularly heard by those of us who deal in this area:

“[P]aying small bribes feeds a climate of corruption, which creates an unstable operating environment for companies. It destroys trust in government and public administration, undermines the rule of law, damages human rights and distorts business transactions. Small bribes are not confined to demands made to companies, as there are no boundaries for officials and others who demand bribes.”

Nice words.  We have heard them before.  They are wrong.

Small bribes do not “[create] an unstable operating environment,” “[damage] human rights” or “[distort] business.”  Rather, small bribes are one of the results of being in a jurisdiction where the rule of law has not been established and locals already do not trust government.  Facilitation payments do not create and do not corrode public and business standards; they are the result of an existing culture of corruption.

While the goal of eliminating corruption is a noble one, punishing the alleged “bribe” givers while ignoring the officials, high level and low, who extort such payments has proved to be fruitless.  Small and large bribes are more often extorted from businesses.  After all, no legitimate business hopes to give a bribe.  Such extortion is practiced by experts who have developed techniques very difficult to resist.  Fighting corruption by punishing the victims of such extortion is equivalent to pushing on a rope.  It gets us nowhere.  Given the 37 years of experience we have had with the FCPA, we cannot escape the conclusion that approaching bribery in international business solely from the bribe payers’ perspective has not, does not, and will not work.

Consider the prescription contained in “Countering Small Bribes.”  The TI approach is based upon ten unobjectionable principles.

“Effective countering of small bribes – including facilitation payments – will be based on the following principles.

1: There is a supporting culture of integrity

2: The company commits to eliminating small bribes

3: Risk assessment is the basis for designing the strategy and programme to eliminate small bribes

4: The company implements a programme to counter small bribes

5: Communication and training are provided to employees

6: Attention is given to countering third party risks

7: The internal accounting controls are designed specifically to counter small bribes

8: Appropriate actions are taken if small bribes are detected

9: The company monitors the effectiveness of its programme to counter small bribes

10: The company acts strategically to influence the corruption environment in which it operates.”

These principles already underlie many companies’ in-house anti-bribery compliance programs.  But these Ten Principles, or any principles, cannot be effective in eliminating bribes, large or small, in a corrupt environment.  The corruption problem in my experience (eight years in Moscow) will never be eliminated by focusing solely on the bribe payer, as the FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act do.

TI-UK’s “Countering Small Bribes” focuses on small bribes.  Fine.  Consider an employee driving home from work in a foreign city, late at night.  This is a common scenario if the client’s home office in the US opens for business at 3:30 PM or later Moscow time.  Leaving the office in Moscow at 10 PM is not unusual.  A local police officer, lying in wait on the street opposite the office parking lot, flags down the employee and suggests that, because of the late hour, he must have been drinking.  This faithful public servant demands a blood test and displays a not-very-sanitary syringe.  Which of the Ten Principles applies?  (After a payment of less than $20, I was no longer deemed inebriated.)

“Countering Small Bribes” also explains why the FCPA exception for “facilitation payments” is wrong.

“The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (‘FCPA’), which was passed in 1977, introduced in 1988 the concept of facilitating (also commonly referred to as ‘facilitation’) payments with an exception from prosecution for such payments. This was to recognise a type of intractable bribery confronting US businesses when operating abroad. Since then, this form of bribery has attracted considerable debate and controversy.

Facilitation payments are illegal in most countries, although a small number including Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the USA provide exceptions, in certain circumstances, for facilitation payments when paid abroad. They remain illegal in their own domestic law.

There is growing international recognition that facilitation payments are not easily separated from other forms of small bribes and more and more companies are following a no-bribes policy throughout their global operations, with no exemptions for facilitation payments.”

The “growing recognition” referred to in the final quoted paragraph doubtless refers to UK’s Bribery Act 2010, which criminalized all bribes, no matter how small.  The Bribery Act was the UK’s long delayed response to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Public Officials in International Business Transactions first signed by the British in 1997.  At that time, the official Commentary addressed facilitation payments as follows:

“Small “facilitation” payments do not constitute payments made “to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage” …  and, accordingly, are also not an offence. Such payments, which, in some countries, are made to induce public officials to perform their functions, such as issuing licenses or permits, are generally illegal in the foreign country concerned. Other countries can and should address this corrosive phenomenon by such means as support for programs of good governance. However, criminalization by other countries does not seem a practical or effective complementary action.”

Note the final sentence: “Criminalization by other countries does not seem a practical or effective complementary action.”  Obviously the U.K. Parliament disagreed when, after much debate, it explicitly criminalized facilitation payments.  Governmental hypocrisy is normal in every U.S. administration and is perhaps a necessary aspect of today’s democracies.  Our British cousins exemplify this with this statement describing facilitation payments which is found in the Guidance to the UK Bribery Act 2010:

“As was the case under the old law, the Bribery Act does not (unlike US foreign bribery law) provide any exemption for such payments.”

This carefully crafted statement is precisely accurate.  It explains that neither the Bribery Act enacted in 2010, nor the superseded earlier anti-bribery laws in England and Wales dating back to 1886, exclude facilitating payments from the definition of crime of bribery.  Absolutely true – the law of England and Wales has never excepted such payments.  On the other hand, in the century plus of British foreign trade under their prior trio of anti-bribery laws, and in the three years since the new Bribery Act became effective, there has also never been a prosecution for foreign facilitating payments.  Not one!  Perhaps this is why Parliament had no problem criminalizing something they believed was not going to be prosecuted.  Whatever one might think about the wisdom of the grease payment exception in the FCPA, as readers of FCPA Professor are aware, the Department of Justice does actively ignores this exception in bringing enforcement actions.

TI-UK’s “Countering Small Bribes,” unfortunately, does nothing to advance the fight against corruption. TI does very valuable work, the results of which we all rely upon.  But “Countering Small Bribes” does not advance this fight.  To combat bribery, national prosecutors must actually bring cases.  To be meaningful, such cases should involve actual bribes, not small facilitation payments.  And if we are sincerely interested in effectively reducing bribery, we must enhance our efforts to punish the extortionate government officials who demand bribes, rather than continue to punish only the victims of extortion.

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Note – contrary to TI’s suggestion, facilitating payments were always exempted in the FCPA originally though a carve-out in the “foreign official” definition (i.e. a “foreign official” did not include an individual with ministerial or clerical duties).  In 1988 this exemption became the stand-alone facilitation payments exemption currently found in the FCPA.