By Matthew
Richardson
Todd Dale Malaki, a U.S. naval officer, will serve 40 months for
selling classified sea craft information to a Singaporean Defense firm, and all
for a $15,000 bribe from Leo “Fat Leonard” Francis. This article
illustrates several points that those interested in anti-corruption should
remember. First, even those sworn to serve and protect, such as Lieutenant
Commander Malaki, can be corrupted. Second, countries seldom covered by U.S.
news sources, such as Singapore, evidently tolerate commercial espionage even
against sovereign security institutions.
By Matthew
Richardson
The much discussed “Yates
Memo” seems to signal that DOJ will now follow the long-anticipated
realignment of prosecutions to target individual bad actors over more numerous
or more high-profile institutions. This goes to an essentially unanswerable question
interested readers might ask themselves: if you want to prevent corporate
wrongdoing, what’s more effective, putting fear into actual executives that
they might be prosecuted, or hitting the institution with a big enough
financial penalty for it to really sting? Put another way, what gets a bigger
reaction, taking heads or taking dollars? Reasonable people will disagree, but
going forward, perhaps DOJ’s experiment will provide interested parties with
some research to consider.
By Matthew
Richardson
DOJ has engaged a “compliance
counsel”
to provide insight and guidance to prosecutors when assessing the compliance
programs of companies that are, or have been, under investigation. Keen
observers are aware that DOJ has been prosecuting actors for years without such
guidance. Those already opinionated on the subject will find all the
confirmation they could want for the allegation that DOJ never really
understood compliance programs to begin with, though advocates will surely
maintain that DOJ’s existing competence on the subject will only become that
much greater.
By Matthew
Richardson
International investigators and enforcement
institutions often receive an outsized share of coverage and interest in the
anti-corruption field. However, it is worth remembering that national
authorities, particularly in the developing world, are on the frontlines of the
world’s anti-corruption efforts. These institutions and individuals are
entrusted with significant power and responsibility, so the sting is
particularly intense when the misappropriations
investigator in Nigeria is itself subject to investigation for misappropriation
of funds,
potentially “diverting” as much as $5 billion in the course of its operating
activities.
By Matthew
Richardson
Unlike other countries, such as the UK, American
real estate agents are not required to report suspicious activities to relevant
authorities. Given that real estate is a popular vehicle for stashing illicit
financial gains, perhaps it would have been wiser for this undercover
journalist paying for property in cash to pretend to be “Boris”
the corrupt health minister in New York rather than London.
By Matthew Richardson
A recent report by KPMG
indicates that corrupt activates are migrating away from sanctionable
international companies. As more countries begin to police the misconduct of
commercial enterprises abroad, there are strong incentives for companies to
find partners willing to engage in corrupt activities on their behalf.
Particularly given the relative rareness of “right-to-audit clauses” such
third-party sheltering can be highly effective.
