FCPAméricas Blog
Exercising FCPA Audit Rights: Tips for Practitioners
3.13.2014
FCPA enforcement actions in the recent past, as well as the FCPA Guidance, highlight the importance of including audit rights in written contracts with third-party contractors. But just including them is not enough. The Assistant Director of the SEC’s FCPA Unit, Tracy Price, has publicly stated that enforcement agencies are also looking at how companies choose to exercise these rights. This post provides four practical tips for exercising audit rights.
Think ahead. Companies should be prepared to exercise audit rights and take steps to reduce difficulties in exercising them long before they have to do so. In Latin America, for example, the enforceability of audit claus... Read more
FCPA Risks When Bubbles Burst in Latin America
3.06.2014
There is a lot of talk right now about whether Brazil can maintain the impressive growth it has experienced in recent years. On February 14th, a Financial Times headline read, “Brazil housing bubble fears as economy teeters,” while The Wall Street Journal reported, “Brazilian data released Friday suggest economic growth has weakened over the past two quarters, illustrating how far a country once considered the darling of emerging-market investors has fallen.” Similar reports are appearing each day.
If Brazil’s economy declines, it will be yet another example of a boom and bust cycle, which is common in Latin America. Not only do countries experience these cycles, the region on the whole is also kn... Read more
Key Aspects of the FCPA Accounting Provisions
3.05.2014
The FCPA has two main provisions: (i) the anti-bribery provisions; and (ii) the books and records and internal control provisions. The second group is commonly referred to as the “accounting provisions.” (FCPAméricas provides a description of the basics of the FCPA in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.)
When people talk about the FCPA, however, what usually come to mind are just the anti-bribery provisions. While it may be obvious that paying a bribe to a foreign government official to obtain a public contract is a violation of the FCPA, one may not realize that falsifying or failing to keep sufficient records of ... Read more
