FCPAméricas Blog
SNC-Lavalin Got You Down? What to do when a business partner is accused of corruption
5.30.2013
For those monitoring foreign bribery cases, 2013 is starting to get busy. In the United States, the last couple of months have included the unsealing of FCPA actions against BizJet executives and Wall Street traders. Just yesterday, authorities announced the fourth most expensive FCPA settlement to date. In Canada, the country’s largest engineering company, SNC-Lavalin, recently received the longest World Bank debarment in history, ten years, for payments related to a Bangladeshi bridge project. Canadian officials have charged its executives for their involvement.
What should a company do when it learns that a joint venture partner, supplier, or other third party has been charged with, or simply accused of, corruption?
From the perspective of enforcement, ongoing monitoring of business partners and third party relationships is a ba... Read more
How the U.S. Government Criminally Charges a Latin American Public Official
5.28.2013
Last November, then Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Lanny Breuer, told an audience at an FCPA conference: “If you are a foreign official, corrupt, and living in the United States, the U.S. Government will prosecute you.” This month the DOJ made public its criminal charges against a Venezuelan public official for bribery-related offenses. The official’s connection to the United States was even more tenuous than the hypothetical provided by Mr. Breuer. María de Los Ángeles González de Hernandez was not even living in the United States.
Mrs. González was the Vice President of Finance at Venezuela’s state economic development bank, Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (BANDES). BANDES operates under the direction of Venezuela’s Ministry of Finance. She headed the bank’s overseas trading activity. The U.S. Government charged her with corruption-related offenses. Mrs. González, 58 years old, was arrested this month in Miami and remains in custody. Criminal charges were also brought against the U.S. traders involved in the scheme.
The scheme. The Complaint and press release tell how, over the span of fourteen months, Mrs. González is all... Read more
More Latin American Data for your FCPA Compliance Program: Gauging levels of petty corruption
5.22.2013
Companies operating in Latin America with robust anti-corruption compliance programs regularly welcome new data to help them better understand the landscapes in which they operate. Risk assessments are a fundamental component of FCPA compliance, as discussed by enforcement agencies in the FCPA Guidance and Attachment Cs to Deferred Prosecution Agreements. Quantitative measures help bolster the accuracy of such assessments. The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index and the 2012 Latin American Corruption Survey are two such sources available to companies for Latin America. FCPAméricas has discussed other empirics here.
Now there is yet another source, the 2012 Americas Barometer Study, conducted by the L... Read more
