Telecommunications Industry in the Government’s FCPA Crosshairs
Anyone operating in the telecommunications industry should be well aware of the number of enforcement actions brought over the past several years by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) involving Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations. What is somewhat startling, however, is that of the scores of industries that have been investigated, it is the matters involving the telecommunications sector that seem to implicate every FCPA issue of moment—from the rising prosecution of individuals to the interpretation of the term “foreign official” to liability based on improper payments to third parties. The sector is particularly at risk for FCPA enforcement actions because telecommunications companies often compete for foreign government contracts and many of the international carriers and equipment manufacturers with which they do business are either partially or wholly-state-owned. Click here to read the full article.
(Reproduced with permission from the Telecommunications Law Resource Center, 2014 TERCN 1, 1/8/14. Copyright 2014 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) www.bna.com.)
