Harry Cassin
Publisher and Editor
Andy Spalding
Senior Editor
Jessica Tillipman
Senior Editor
Bill Steinman
Senior Editor
Richard L. Cassin
Editor at Large
Elizabeth K. Spahn
Editor Emeritus
Cody Worthington
Contributing Editor
Julie DiMauro
Contributing Editor
Thomas Fox
Contributing Editor
Marc Alain Bohn
Contributing Editor
Bill Waite
Contributing Editor
Russell A. Stamets
Contributing Editor
Richard Bistrong
Contributing Editor
Eric Carlson
Contributing Editor
The FCPA isn’t perfect and the DOJ’s enforcement style doesn’t always meet heavenly standards. But no one can deny this country’s contribution to keeping international business clean and holding national leaders accountable.… Continue Reading
Republicans didn’t always like the FCPA. In their Minority Comments from September 1977, House Republicans said they abhorred bribery abroad. But the only real way to fight it, they insisted, was through disclosure.… Continue Reading
Ken Silverstein’s report on this week’s Senate hearings about foreign rulers moving huge chunks of money to the U.S. is here.
For Silverstein, Harper’s Washington editor and writer of the online Washington Babylon, the Senate investigation is a personal triumph.… Continue Reading
Britain has banned 20 Kenyans from entering the country. According to reports last week from the BBC and others, the names of those banned haven’t been made public but they may include senior civil servants, politicians and businessmen.… Continue Reading
The lawsu
it examining how three African rulers and their families managed to acquire dozens of luxury homes, cars and other assets in France has been stopped. A Paris magistrate had ordered the investigation in May at the request of Transparency International.… Continue Reading
Mergers and acquisitions are back. Seeking Alpha just said: “Over the past few weeks, there has been a resurgence in acquisition activity, fueling an already strong market rally. This news has spanned all regions of the economy ranging from the transportation sector (Burlington Northern being taken over by Berkshire Hathaway) to pharmaceuticals (Schering Plough being acquired by Merck).… Continue Reading
Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger (left), made a very strange announcement. He confirmed on his Twitter page that the U.S. government had denied a visa to Kenya’s attorney general Amos Wako.… Continue Reading
In Malaysia this week, four forestry department officials, including the director, an officer and two rangers, were arrested for taking a $30,000 bribe. In exchange, they allegedly awarded illegal logging concessions.… Continue Reading
We’ve never heard of an African head of state asking the U.S. to deny visas to individuals suspected of corruption. Until now, that is. It happened on Friday when Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (left), “pleaded with the Government of the United States of America not to give U.S.
The United States fights foreign kleptocrats through Proclamation 7750, by denying them and their families U.S. visas. And through Section 314(a) of the Patriot Act, which it can use to reach out to more than 25,000 financial institutions to find accounts and transactions of anyone who may be involved in laundering kleptocratic assets.… Continue Reading
Last week, while we were looking into ways the U.S. fights foreign kleptocrats, we heard about Presidential Proclamation 7750. It was issued in 2004 and, by 2006, a high State Department official was calling it a “key tool” in America’s anti-corruption arsenal.… Continue Reading
Only bribe-payers can be prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; bribe-takers are excluded. Congress wrote the FCPA that way because it believed “the efforts expended in resolving the diplomatic, jurisdictional, and enforcement difficulties that would arise upon the prosecution of foreign officials was not worth the minimal deterrent value of such prosecutions.”… Continue Reading
