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Changing Little, U.S. Guidance on FCPA Offers Clarity for Trade Groups
By Brian Monroe
printThe U.S. Justice Department's long-awaited guidance for businesses complying with a foreign anti-bribery law will do little to change its enforcement even as it sets some minds at ease, say attorneys. In tandem with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the department outlined in the 120-page guidance the types of actions that do and don't violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that has been increasingly enforced since 2006. The act prohibits businesses, including banks, from bribing foreign officials to win lucrative business deals. Since 2010, how federal prosecutors interpret the law has been the subject of...
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British companies hoping for a compliance reprieve from the U.K.'s key law against bribery could have a long wait ahead of them, with no promise of getting what they've asked for, say attorneys.
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To Comply With Anti-Bribery Law, Banks Must Be Careful with Payments for Licenses, Sovereign Clients
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Pending U.S. guidance for the country's foreign anti-bribery law and an ongoing political push to amend its rules could mean compliance changes for banks and other businesses, say analysts.
As global efforts to crack down on bribery grow, financial institutions need to more closely scrutinize the accounts they maintain for politically-tied figures, according to a former senior assistant U.S. attorney.
Since its inception, some of the country's top corporations have asked lawmakers to scale back the reach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribing foreign officials in conjunction with business deals, with one notable absence: the banking lobby.
U.S. Justice Department investigations of foreign bribery will likely end up snaring financial institutions, according to the former head of the government's anti-corruption unit.
The departure Friday of the Justice Department's top enforcer of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will mark an end to an era, not a slowdown in penalties against violators, say analysts.
The rise in U.S. prosecutions of companies that bribe foreign officials won't likely plateau for another four or five years, when European countries are expected to further clamp down on the crime, according to the former assistant chief for the Fraud Section of the Justice Department.
A British anti-bribery bill expected to pass this month could increase the likelihood that U.S. financial institutions and other companies will face sizable monetary penalties for overseas deals, say consultants.
The U.S. Justice Department nets 22 suspects in its largest ever investigation into individuals for FCPA violations, and FinCEN issues a ruling on whether domestic bill payment services companies are MSBs, in this week's roundup.
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With an increased focus on fraud and corruption investigations, financial institutions can't afford to silo their separate compliance efforts, according to Jane Wexton, president of Wexton Advisors, a New York-based consultancy.
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