Andy Spalding: Here’s the ebook we wrote about Brazil’s anti-corruption triumph

The University of Richmond Anti-Corruption Research Team is proud to announce the release of our ebook, “Olympic Anti-Corruption Report: Brazil and the Rio 2016 Games.”

The ebook, and many other resources, are now available on our web page, law.richmond.edu/olympics.

Though reports of Brazilian corruption now flood the papers, they miss this moment’s deeper significance. What appears to be a crisis is, in fact, a remarkable triumph for anti-corruption efforts, for the rule of law, and for democracy itself. We’ll explain why.

In the weeks leading up to the August 5 opening ceremonies, we’ll serially publish chapters of our report, and make available short videos summarizing our findings. You’ll also see a link to the Transparency International report on corruption in sport, to which we contributed a chapter.

But you’ll hear about all of it here on the FCPA Blog, where we’ll be writing regularly in the lead up to the Games.

The Olympic Games shed a spotlight on a country as few events can.  The world is already talking about Brazil, and that conversation will only escalate in the coming weeks. Since the mid-1990s, when the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games bid scandal broke, the pre-Olympic chatter has invariable turned to issues of corruption. It certainly did for Sochi and Russia, and it already has for Brazil. We hope to bring some sophistication and, dare we say, a measure of optimism, to the conversation.

The University of Richmond Anti-Corruption Research Team is a group of eight lawyers, all graduates of UR Law. While students, they took my year-long course, “Brazil, Corruption, and the 2016 Summer Olympics.” We traveled to Brazil and interviewed various representatives of the Olympic movement, the bar, and civil society. All eight team members contributed substantially to the analysis and writing contained in our report.

We hope to challenge everything you now assume about Brazil, and the Olympic Games.  Stay tuned.

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Andy Spalding is a Senior Editor of the FCPA Blog and Associate Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. He’ll be a moderator and panelist at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.