Posts Tagged ‘anti-corruption’
Australia’s Adequate Procedures Guidance
Today we have a guest column from Mary Shirley, chief compliance officer at ScionHealth. Earlier this year Australia passed new anti-corruption legislation known as the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combating Foreign Bribery), and in August the government released voluntary guidance to help corporations understand the “adequate procedures” — that is, the elements of an effective compliance…
Read MoreCorruption Is Still Corruption, Folks
Yes, the Supreme Court reached a preposterous conclusion last Friday in Snyder v. United States, when the conservative majority ruled that a “gratuity” that’s plainly part of a corrupt bargain is not a crime under federal anti-corruption law. Anxious corporate compliance professionals, however, should begin by asking a crucial question: Who cares? Seriously — how…
Read MoreFEPA: A Huge Step on Foreign Bribery
We have a Christmas season surprise for all you anti-corruption enthusiasts out there! Washington has just passed the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, a law that makes it a crime for foreign government officials to demand or accept a bribe from a U.S. company. FEPA, as the legislation will now be forever abbreviated, was folded into…
Read More2022 Corruption Perceptions Index
Transparency International has released its annual ranking of corruption levels in countries around the world, with Scandinavia and New Zealand leading as usual while the United States place a rather underwhelming 24th. TI publishes its Corruption Perceptions Index at the start of every year, and the index has become a standard reference work that compliance…
Read MoreA View on Corruption From Ukraine
Earlier this week I recorded our usual Compliance Into the Weeds podcast with my friend and colleague Tom Fox, plus a special guest: Timur Khasanov-Batirov, a compliance officer and anti-corruption officer in Ukraine. Given the importance of the war in Ukraine, our conversation with Khasanov-Batirov deserves its own written post as well. Several points are…
Read MoreBiden Admin Unveils Anti-Corruption Strategy
The Biden Administration has released its strategy on countering corruption around the world, with lots of talk about cross-border collaboration, data collection, and tougher U.S. enforcement; but relatively little about new legislation that might add fresh burdens to anti-corruption compliance programs. The White House released the strategy document, 38 pages long, on Monday morning. It…
Read MoreChina’s New Anti-Corruption Maneuver
It seems that China is revising its anti-corruption rules to give it a stronger hand in prosecuting overseas corporations that bribe government officials, in case you need yet another headache in your compliance officer life. We don’t know the exact details of the new rules or even have a copy of them available to the…
Read MoreAnti-Bribery Law Update!
A bipartisan group in Congress has revived legislation that would make it a crime for foreign government officials to demand or accept a bribe from a U.S. company, to serve as a statutory counterpoint to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its ban on offering bribes. The Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, known as FEPA, has…
Read MoreFirstEnergy and Domestic Corruption Woes
Compliance professionals are already well-acquainted with the seedy mechanics of overseas bribery. Now FirstEnergy Corp. in Ohio has given us a full frontal view of how domestic corruption happens right here in the United States, too. You might recall the case from last year. Larry Householder, the now-former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives,…
Read MoreBiden Puts Anti-Corruption Centerstage
President Biden issued a policy memo Thursday vowing to make anti-corruption a pillar of U.S. national security — with numerous potential implications for corporate compliance programs that we can barely begin to understand right now. First, we should be clear about exactly what the president did here. He did not issue an executive order, which…
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