Richard L. Cassin Publisher and Editor
Andy Spalding Senior Editor
Jessica Tillipman Senior Editor
Elizabeth K. Spahn Contributing Editor
Eric Carlson Contributing Editor
Benjamin Kessler Contributing Editor
Michael Kuria Contributing Editor
Thomas Fox Contributing Editor
Philip Fitzgerald Contributing Editor
Marc Alain Bohn Contributing Editor
Michael Scher Contributing Editor
Bill Waite Contributing Editor
Shruti J. Shah Contributing Editor
Dr. Henry Wong Contributing Editor
Russell A. Stamets Contributing Editor
Mark R. Friedman Contributing Editor
Andrew Reichardt Editorial Intern
Richard L. Cassin | Thursday, July 5, 2012 at 1:28AM The World Bank Group debarred two Oxford University Press for three years for misconduct by two subsidiaries in East Africa.
Richard L. Cassin | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 5:18AM This is the second prosecution in Canada for bribes to officials in Bangladesh.
Michael Ndichu Kuria | Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 2:10AM Since 2005, Southern Sudan has collected about $10 billion in oil revenues. The stolen funds would therefore constitute 40% of the country’s oil revenues.
Pascale Dubois | Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 4:28AM Measuring ill-gotten gains is one of the primary ways enforcement agencies can calculate penalties for bribe-payers. And the proceeds of bribery can only be confiscated if they are first calculated. But how to measure them?
Andy Spalding | Friday, May 4, 2012 at 7:05AM Last post, I discussed the proposal from Nigeria’s Social-Economic Rights and Accountability Project to establish a mechanism for using the proceeds of FCPA settlements to help bribery victims.
Richard L. Cassin | Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 8:22AM The Asian Development Bank debarred 34 individuals last year, and 31 firms. Debarred means they're illegible to participate in ADB-financed, administered, or supported activities.
Richard L. Cassin | Friday, August 12, 2011 at 6:02AM Peter Eigen, a German lawyer and former World Bank manager in Africa and Latin America, may be the most influential person ever in the world of anti-corruption and compliance. In Berlin in 1993 he founded the NGO Transparency International.
Richard L. Cassin | Friday, July 22, 2011 at 7:28AM Macmillan Publishers Limited, which last year acknowledged attempts to bribe World Bank employees to win book sales in Africa, will pay £11 million in a negotiated civil settlement announced today with the Serious Fraud Office.
Guest Contributor | Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 6:59AM A new World Bank study on corruption in the roads sector shows the challenges contractors and engineering firms working in developing countries face when trying to avoid being drawn into schemes that violate the Foreign Corruption Practices Act or the anti-corruption laws of other nations or both.
Richard L. Cassin | Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 7:28AM 
The World Bank last week debarred a U.K subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers for six years (reviewable after three years) after the parent company self-reported to the bank corrupt payments to public officials in Sudan. The bribes were unsuccessful in landing sales of textbooks under the World Bank-administered Sudan Multi-Donor Trust Fund.
The company also announced last week that it self-disclosed the payments to the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office.
Graft is always bad. In a country like Sudan, its impact is magnified. After 20 years of civil war and lawlessness, Sudan ranks fourth worst on the Corruption Perception Index and third worst on the Failed States Index, trailed only by Somalia and Zimbabwe. Its people can expect to live about 52 years, compared with 62 in Cambodia, 72 in Indonesia, and 82 in Japan. Per capita gross domestic product (purchasing power) for its 41 million people is $2,300 while the world average is $10,500.
Millions there struggle every day for shelter, drinkable water, food, medicines, and education. Public corruption diverts money from basic necessities. It literally takes food off the table and textbooks out of the hands of children.
The World Bank's press release about the debarment was all business but Macmillan's was different, carrying a hint of sadness that was entirely fitting. In her public statement, Annette Thomas, Macmillan's chief executive, did something rare in the business world: she acknowledged the victims of corruption and the harm inflicted on them (even unsuccessful bribes help perpetuate corrupt systems and rulers).
Awareness of that harm was a factor leading to enactment of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Although this case doesn't involve the FCPA, it's a reminder of why the FCPA and laws like it matter.
When A. A. Sommer, Jr. was a commissioner of the SEC in 1976, a year before the FCPA became law, he said: "[T]here are moral problems as well as legal problems that go far beyond simply the question of illegal payoffs to foreign officials. There are questions concerning the role of multinational corporations, the extent to which they have obligations to the countries in which they conduct their business, the extent to which they should seek to raise the standards of conduct there, the respect which they should show the laws of other countries." Three decades later the once skeptical Wall Street Journal could say the quixotic Foreign Corrupt Practices Act had turned into one of Congress's finer moments.
Corruption ruins millions, maybe billions of lives. Those who say graft is a crime against humanity are more right than the rest of us like to admit. The DOJ, SEC, Serious Fraud Office, and World Bank should use all available tools to pursue and punish those who commit public bribery anywhere. Prosecutors shouldn't be diverted by the weird corporatization of government services that blurs the distinction of who's a "foreign official." And they shouldn't compromise ethics because "black knights" will rush in where honest companies fear to tread. That's a short-term and short-sighted view of the world and the marketplace.
Macmillan didn't say how much it paid Sudanese officials. But a bribe of any size that could have deprived a child of a textbook would be disturbing. CEO Annette Thomas said, "We are deeply shocked to have discovered these issues, and are sorry for the harm that such behaviour will have done."
The World Bank's April 30, 2010 announcement of Macmillan (U.K.) Limited's debarment is here.
Macmillan Publisher's May 6, 2010 announcement is here.
