FCPA Anti-Bribery Provisions Overview

The FCPA: Anti-Bribery Provisions THE FCPA: ANTI-BRIBERY PROVISIONS The FCPA addresses the problem of international corruption in two ways: (1) the anti-bribery provisions, which are discussed below, prohibit individuals and businesses from bribing foreign government officials in order to obtain or retain business and (2) the accounting provisions, which are discussed in Chapter 3, impose certain record keeping and internal control requirements on issuers, and prohibit individuals and companies from knowingly falsifying an issuer's books and records or circumventing or failing to implement an is- suer’s system of internal controls. Violations of the FCPA can lead to civil and criminal penalties, sanctions, and remedies, including fines, disgorgement, and/or imprisonment. In general, the FCPA prohibits offering to pay, pay- ing, promising to pay, or authorizing the payment of money or anything of value to a foreign official in order to influ- ence any act or decision of the foreign official in his or her official capacity or to secure any other improper advantage in order to obtain or retain business. Who Is Covered by the Anti-Bribery Provisions? The FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions apply broadly to three categories of persons and entities: (1) “issuers” and their officers, directors, employees, agents, and sharehold- ers; (2) “domestic concerns” and their officers, directors, employees, agents, and shareholders; and (3) certain per- sons and entities, other than issuers and domestic concerns, acting while in the territory of the United States. Issuers—15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1 Section 30A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act), which can be found at 15 US.C. § 78dd-1, contains the anti-bribery provision governing HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022512