Eric Carlson | Contributing Editor
Eric R. Carlson is a contributing editor of the FCPA Blog.
He’s a Shanghai-based partner at Covington & Burling LLP.
Eric advises clients operating in China and other jurisdictions in Asia on a range of anti-corruption laws, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). He has deep experience leading highly sensitive anti-corruption/FCPA investigations in China and other jurisdictions in Asia, including investigations presenting complex legal, political, and reputational risks.
He also counsels clients on the corruption risks of proposed transactions, conducts anti-corruption due diligence as part of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures, assists companies in updating and strengthening their internal anti-corruption compliance programs and tailoring them to the unique features of Asian markets, and developing and presenting tailored compliance training in Chinese and English. He has advised scores of companies and organizations representing nearly every major industry.
He speaks Mandarin and Cantonese and has led hundreds of witness interviews in Chinese in 20 provinces in China, and conducted dozens of trainings in Chinese.
He advises clients on privacy and data security issues, particularly as they relate to China and other jurisdictions in Asia. He also counsels clients on U.S. export controls and economic sanctions applied by the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, and Treasury, and related Chinese trade control regulations, including conducting internal investigations into potential violations of these laws.
More information about him can be found here.
Recent Posts

Mooncakes, Mooncake Coupons, and Compliance in China
As many compliance professionals who deal with China know, mooncakes are common gifts at the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the “Moon Festival”), which falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month (September or early October).

China’s Domestic Bribery Laws Impact Foreign Investors
Many multinationals operating in China focus on compliance with the FCPA — and rightly so, given the intersection of expanding business opportunities, corruption risks, and the broad range of “foreign officials” present in China.

China’s Overseas Bribery Law One Year On
As reported previously, in February 2011, China enacted an amendment to its Criminal Law that criminalized paying bribes to non-Chinese government officials and officials of international organizations (“the Amendment”).

Chinese Government Centralizes Database of Bribery Convictions
On February 16, 2012, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (“SPP”), the main investigatory and prosecutorial arm of the Chinese government, in conjunction with other PRC anti-corruption agencies, announced that a database listing individuals and companies found guilty of certain bribery offenses now has nationwide scope.

China’s Top Court Issues Interpretation On Transparency Regulation
China’s Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) recently issued a judicial interpretation of the “Regulation on Open Government Information” (“OGI Regulation”), the regulation adopted by the Chinese government in April 2007 in an effort to make government information more accessible to the general public in China.

Letter From Beijing
Lawyer Eric Carlson introduces China’s FCPAIn late February, the PRC legislature passed 49 amendments to the Criminal Law, one of which criminalizes paying bribes to non-PRC government officials and to officials of international public organizations. It’s the first time PRC law has prohibited Chinese nationals and PRC companies from paying bribes to non-PRC government officials.