MyComplianceOffice Blog

A conflict of interest happens when a person with multiple interests serves one to the detriment of another. For example, an individual may seek to create personally-beneficial outcomes at the expense of fairness and competition. They may engage in activities that put the confidentiality of their firms’ information at risk or put personal financial gains ahead of their firms’, clients’, or broader financial market’s interests.

Last year, two executives of Herbalife Ltd. were charged after spending $25 million on entertainment and gifts for Chinese officials in 10 years period, to facilitate the company operations in some regions in China.

We are relentlessly curious about how organizations deal with their Gifts and Entertainment rules and policy globally. Thinking about that and not finding enough insights, we ran a survey to understand everything we could about Gifts and Entertainment Policy and Compliance trends.

“We can’t change human nature, or the pressures of business and the economic/political backdrop, but we can change how we deal with compliance” states Crispin Rapinet,  partner at Hogan Lovells, in the 2020 report providing an overview of the challenges for multinationals on all aspects of anti-bribery & corruption.

The report highlights how multinationals in Europe, the U.S., and Asia are dealing with the pressure of global growth while balancing  ABC's concerns when investing in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) is a United States law and prohibits firms and individuals from paying bribes to foreign officials in pursuit of business deals. In the past years, we haven’t seen many FCPA-related trials, however, in 2019 we saw the FCPA convicting four defendants in three trials.