Countries and Industries with High FCPA Risk

 Let's go now and take a look at some of the FCPA risks. Look, everybody knows about China and the gift giving culture, and the red envelopes and all that. It's great to be aware of that, but let me tell you just from my experience. Latin American, Eastern Europe, Russia, Mexico, there's gift giving that people are demanding all the time. Latin America in particular. I know everybody talks about China and the risks, but trust me, the risks sort of extend way beyond China. But China is just notorious for some its more egregious examples from the past.

I also wouldn't say, look, the healthcare industry has a history, and I always say with regard to healthcare and the pharmaceuticals, that basically doctors outside the United States are about 10 years behind where the US doctors are. US doctors here have been beaten up so badly that they don't expect those trips to Hawaii to talk about a new drug, or whatever. Basically drug companies have cut down way, way, way, way much on the continuing medical education.

The doctors in Europe, the doctors overseas on the other hand, usually being state-owned government entities, are going to be very demanding for continuing medical education, for meals, for entertainment. Send me to this. Send me to that. And so, we have to be extremely careful, particularly in the healthcare industry. Not to say that we don't have the problems in oil and gas, or that we don't have them in other industries as well, because it extends into oil and gas, it extends into manufacturing, it extends everywhere. But healthcare in particular, because of the number of healthcare professionals that you're interacting, and who are all considered foreign officials for purposes of the FCPA, you've got to be careful about.

One last issue are ... And I'm seeing a definite increase in bringing people to company facilities, and there is definitely a lot more freedom when you bring people for legitimate purposes to your company, or to a site, to inspect or to do a sort of marketing promotional type thing. You should always, always be very careful about that, and talk to your counsel, talk to us. We'll help you structure it, and there's a lot more flexibility. You can fly people occasionally in first class. You can give them a pretty good meal. You can give them even entertainment. As long as the predominant purpose, and as long as most of what is occurring is with regard to the legitimate purpose of promoting your products and doing things like that.

This webinar was co-hosted with Michael Volkov of VolkovLaw.