FCPAméricas Blog
Latin America is not a Country (Managing FCPA compliance when risks are diverse)
2.28.2012
I was recently asked to give a presentation on a webinar about common corruption risks in Latin America. My first reaction – impossible.
As people in the region will sometimes tell you, “Latin America is not a country.” It is a massive region with more than half a billion people and 24 different nations represented. Latin Americans speak Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, and hundreds of other indigenous languages. The cultures found in Paraguay are not the cultures found in Panama.
Even within individual countries, the diversity can be staggering. Just compare the natural jungle of Manaus to the concrete jungle of São Paulo – both are in Brazil.
This diversity makes for a diverse collection of corruption risks. You can see it in the FCPA enforcement actions involving the region. Exposed corruption schemes have included bread-and-butter, straight-forward payments to offshore shell companies to win public contracts in underdeveloped countries like Haiti (see, e.g., the Terra Telecommunications Corp. indictments). Schemes also include highly sophisticated structures involving multiple actors meetin... Read more
Violence, Threats, and Anti-Corruption Compliance (Thoughts on Brazil’s Latest Killings)
2.17.2012
In the last week, two Brazilian journalists, Paulo Rodrigues of Jornal da Praça and Mario Lopes of Vassouras na Net, have been murdered. Both were vocal critics of corruption there. One was killed by men on motorcycles. The other was abducted from his home with his girlfriend and later shot dead.
These developments are tragedies for the journalists and their families. They also serve as reminders of three important aspects of corruption: First, corruption is a crime, committed by criminals. Second, anti-corruption work can be dangerous. Third, anti-corruption compliance practitioners should seek to manage these issues.
Corruption is Criminal. Every time I hear someone say, “but corruption is just the way business is done in some countries” – as if this were an excuse – I cannot help but think about the real risks at play. Corruption is a crime. It is rconducted by people who operate outside of the law. Once you are operating outside of the law by stealing from the public, (i.e., once you are a criminal), the leap is not far to hiring gunmen on motorbikes to kill people.
Some might excuse corruption as cultural. That is w... Read more
Como se dice “Whistleblower”? (Part 2: Do Protections Extend to Latin Americans?)
2.14.2012
The Frank-Dodd whistleblower provisions became effective almost exactly six months ago. Then, three months later, the SEC provided initial data on the whistleblower program in an Annual Report to Congress. From this report, we know that 10% of the tips in the first several weeks came from abroad, and that some of those were from Latin America.
[Part 1of this blog series considers how Latin Americans are learning about Dodd-Frank. Part 2 considers whether whistleblower protections can extend to Latin Americans.]
Given this information, it is helpful to consider whether or not whistleblower anti-retaliatory protections extend to foreigners, in particular Latin Americans.
Under Section 21F of Dodd-Frank (provided here), whistleblowers are granted a level of anonymity in the disclosure process. Employee whistleblowers are also provided a priv... Read more
