A Hundred Tiny Bribes

More than a month ago -- practically forever in the time-warped blogosphere -- we mentioned that a reader had shared with us a soon-to-be published paper about facilitating payments. Well, the paper is now available.

It's written by Hogan & Hartson partner T. Clark Weymouth and associate Jeremy B. Zucker. The link is here. They prepared it for pro bono client Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit organization that targets the illegal cross-border flow of funds around the world by working with governments, think tanks and NGOs.

In the paper, Messrs. Weymouth and Zucker trace the history, use and abuse of facilitating payments under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. They compare how facilitating payments are treated under the FCPA, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the U.N. Convention Against Corruption and the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. And they analyze compliance risks associated with grease payments -- with enough examples to cool anyone's ardor for this lone exception written into the FCPA.

As we mentioned back in May, seeing our favorite FCPA topic treated with such thorough scholarship and wrapped in a great presentation is genuinely exciting. We don't want to spoil the fun, though, so we'll stop here -- after we acknowledge the generosity and public spirit of the authors, their law firm and its pro bono client.

View prior posts about facilitating payments here.

Comments

[Mike Snyder]

We are having more and more conversations with General Counsel from mulitinational organizations along these lines. The U.S. is increasingly less tolerant of facilitation payments and continuing to make them is risky.