Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Blog


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
April 24, 2012 4:02PM

Wal‐​Mart, FCPA and Mexico

By Walter Olson

SHARE

Last fall in this space I described the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as “a feel‐​good piece of overcriminalization” that Congress should never have passed. Over the weekend a front‐​page New York Times investigation alleged that Wal-Mart’s Mexican subsidiary had paid millions in bribes to local officials for permission to build stores around the country. Worse, when executives in America learned of the payments, they chose to sweep the matter under the rug rather than pursue an investigation, and that choice may have implicated high‐​level company execs in FCPA violations. [WSJ summary; Wal‐​Mart written statement and video]


I’m writing up a longer piece on the controversy. In the mean time, a few points:

  • The original payments to Mexican officials are said to have exceeded $24 million; meanwhile, $12 billion in stock market value, or 500 times that sum, was vaporized in one day on Monday. Wal-Mart’s high legal exposure arises through the interaction of various FCPA provisions with each other and with other federal and state laws, including possible liability under state corporate law and Sarbanes‐​Oxley. Collateral costs, such as executive distraction and probes into its operations in other countries, could debilitate the largest U.S. retailer for some time.
  • A good place to begin on the legal issues is Mike Koehler’s FCPA Professor with coverage here and here.
  • According to Peter Henning at NYT DealBook, it may be too late for the feds to file criminal charges against individual defendants over the original payments because of FCPA’s five‐​year statute of limitations. On the other hand, DoJ will have various theories to go after the company itself: it can claim that later financial results are misstated, or that there was a conspiracy at least one step of which was taken within the last five years, or that records were destroyed which could serve as an obstruction of justice charge under Sarbanes‐​Oxley. If the original wrongdoers wind up walking free while managers who arrived on the scene later take a full legal hit, well, that wouldn’t be the first time.
  • Some proponents of the FCPA are claiming vindication: how can the Cato types be right in calling this law vague and punitive when it failed to deter a cover‐​up at a company as big and image‐​sensitive as Wal‐​Mart? UCLA corporate law specialist Stephen Bainbridge has a nice riposte: “In other words, the FCPA imposes huge burdens and liability risks on honest companies, but fails to deter dishonest ones, so we’re going to leave it on the books as is. I’m left scratching my head in wonderment at the folly of it all.”
  • Daniel Fisher at Forbes scores an interview with the eminent Yale management professor Paul MacAvoy whose analysis of the case follows:

    …all large U.S. corporations operating abroad must play a dangerous game in order to obtain the permits and permissions they need. MacAvoy, who has served on the boards of Chase Manhattan, American Cyanamid and Alumax, said Wal-Mart’s mistake was steering all the payments to a pair of lawyers who allegedly were friends of the company’s Mexico counsel. That concentrated the risk and the likelihood of a big, crater‐​the‐​company scandal instead of a series of small ones.


    From my experience, he said, most companies have “local representatives involved in negotiations and they pay the local reps a fee for the representation without asking how that fee gets redistributed.”


    “The consultant does the dirty work,” he said. “This case went wrong by the concentration of the funds and the coverup of the process.”

Related Tags
Constitutional Law, Regulation, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW,
Washington, DC 20001-5403
(202) 842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org