Combating Corruption and Terrorist Financing
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been under increased scrutiny, while at the same time practicing at an increased level of enforcement. This is the same case for other such organizations throughout the world such as the anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and anti-terrorist financing agencies. All of these organizations are working harder than ever in the effort to combat and control corruption, for the harder they work, the harder the criminals work.
Corrupt politicians, business CEOs, and foreign officials are becoming increasingly wiser to the ways of the investigators and are ever coming with with more devious, more intelligent thought out ways in which to commit the crimes they intend to commit. This is in part due to just howsuccessful these agencies have been in the years following the terrorist activities surrounding and leading up to 9/11. So it is incredibly important for the businesses and corporations, as well as the financial institutions and the governments of the world, to be diligent, and ensure that all those they work with, work for, and supervise over follow the laws and remain in compliance with the work demanding of them by theFCPA.
Should they be concerned if they are in compliance, they may hire a third party to come in and objectively assess their policies and procedures and determine whether or not those are effective in the first place, and if they are that they are being followed and enforced. This is known as a field audit, and they will dig deep into the program, do a risk assessment, and create a plan based on what they consider to be areas of high or potential risk, in regards to possible FCPA violations. This is important because should a company be brought into a court of law, the “I did not know” defense will be tossed out the window. It is each company, or country’sresponsibility to understand the policies and the laws, and to become informed about them if they do not.