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U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#31

Post by ojbyrne »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

Aren't there some rumors that the Trump administration is weakening enforcement of the FCPA?

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#32

Post by [deleted] »

exelius wrote: post #4
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did they foresee this probe coming or is this something that they will have to scramble to react to? It depends entirely on whether or not this was a top-down decision. The most efficiently run companies consider the likely returns on illegal activity and the potential ramifications of getting caught. If the math works out in favor of the illegal behavior, they'll go ahead and do that. Depending on the nature of th…

Come on -- the case in question is in India. Bribes are a way of life there. You literally cannot do business there without paying bribes. Nobody had to tell anyone to pay the bribe; if they're anything like every other company I've worked with over there, they have an official slush fund for this stuff. You just do it. Now, it's pretty abhorrent that they doxed a rape victim; and that behavior is reason enough to in…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#33

Post by donavanm »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

As you point out for a business the FCPA is both elementary, serious, and enitrely possible to comply with.

That said the "jail time" provision is a joke. Going from memory no corporate officer has ever gone to prison for an FCPA violation. A handful have been hung out to pay nominal fines. The vast majority of personal culpability (when it does happen) are settled by the company.

Edit: yes, some employees have gone to jail. But not officers that I can recall.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#35

Post by dreamcompiler »

ojbyrne wrote: post #31
dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

Aren't there some rumors that the Trump administration is weakening enforcement of the FCPA?

The Wikipedia article says that Trump called the FCPA a "horrible law" but Jeff Sessions says he'll continue to enforce it.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#36

Post by saghm »

tryingagainbro wrote: post #25
saghm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article didn't say anything about the rape case. From TFA: "Reuters in June reported that Uber had hired a law firm to investigate how it obtained the medical records of an Indian woman who was raped by an Uber driver in 2014." > Getting her info could have cost less than $100, but staying in business in certain countries could run in tens of millions. I'm honestly not sure what point you're trying to make here…

I believe the link changed, it was a WSJ article first with no mention of the rape case. I doubted that they'd be investigated for small sums of payments.

Fair enough. Now that I reread the whole article, the mentioning of the incident does actually seem a bit out of place in this as well; it doesn't explicitly connect it to the preceding paragraph or the rest of the paragraph.

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#39

Post by mc32 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

Oh wow. FCPA violations. One of the key rules of American business is that you do not dance around with the FCPA [0]. (I suspect many new startup managers are not familiar with the FCPA but you can bet their investors are.) Violations of the FCPA do not just result in fines, they result in actual jail time for whomever did the bribing, whether they be individual low-level employees, contractors, or CEOs. That said, t…

An off-topic gotcha can be illegally importing things into overseas offices --those momentary expediencies can result in long term bans or oversight from those governments when trying to get other things in legally.

Always follow your legal dept guidance. No matter how trivial it may seem (it's just for the expo, client demo, etc).

Re: U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

#40

Post by seanlinehan »

crmd wrote: post #38

If I pay a consultant $1M for his expertise in navigating local bureaucracy, and it turns out that he used half of that money to bribe local officials without my knowledge, have I committed a crime under FCPA?

If there were any red flags that you could have known about, yes. Not knowing does not grant you immunity under FCPA.
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