Manatt Partner Discusses Companies' Banning of Facilitation Payments

"Designing a Facilitation Payments Policy to Minimize Liability and Retain Flexibility (Part One of Two)"
The FCPA Report

July 25, 2012 - Manatt's Jacqueline Wolff, co-chair of the firm's Corporate Investigations & White Collar Defense Practice, spoke to The FCPA Report about the increase in companies choosing to ban facilitation payments to foreign officials.

As The FCPA Report discusses, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits bribes to foreign officials, but allows an exception for facilitation payments, which are given to expedite the execution of a ministerial process. However, more and more companies are moving toward policies that ban these types of payments.

Companies would consider banning facilitation payments for several reasons, including: most countries ban these types of payments to foreign officials; local laws ban these payments to domestic officials; and companies run the risk of FCPA violations if the payments are not properly recorded.

Wolff said, "I think a lot of companies are going to follow the trend of banning such payments, because there are situations where a facilitation payment could be viewed as a bribe due to the amount of money involved or the number of times that payments have been made or other advantages that have been secured on account of the facilitation payment. Also, there are other countries where such payments are illegal and you do not want a patchwork policy."

Read the article here.