United States Department Of Justice And The Securities And Exchange Commission

In today’s ever changing and competitive modern world of business, it is critical for the companies to have activities internationally. In order to prohibit frauds and illegal activities, several acts and documents have been elaborated. One of the documents is Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that has been enacted in the 1970’s, as a result of SEC investigation of several U.S. companies that made illegal payments to foreign governmental officials, politicians, and political parties (Barnes 73). The FCPA had a critical impact on the way U.S. firms do business. Companies that did not comply with FCPA have been subject of criminal and civil enforcement actions that later resulted in huge fines and sentences for

When the U.S. stood completely alone in its legislative quest to curtail foreign bribery, the catastrophic scenario did not materialize. “As the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted four years after the implementation of the FCPA in a study called the Impact of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on U.S. Business; claims that U.S. companies have lost sales…are difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate and quantify” (Graham, 1984).   Further, a paper published in the Journal of International Business used published data to test the competitive disadvantage theory and found that “the FCPA had not negatively affected the competitive position of American industry in the world marketplace” (Graham, 1984).   Even then, when the American industry was the only one worldwide facing these kinds of restrictions, anti-bribery laws did not negatively impact their export performance or market share.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has the mission of protecting investors by maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets. The SEC does this in a number of ways, and firms need to pay attention to these ways in order to ensure SEC compliance. The SEC has enforcement authority over a number of areas related to the nation's capital markets, including insider trading, accounting fraud, and providing false information. The SEC's jurisdiction extends to all securities that are traded publicly. Privately-held companies do not need to register with the SEC (SEC.gov, 2012).

According to Benston (1977) an unaware public pays for government-required accounting disclosure. Sunstein (1999) claims that disclosure of information allows the federal government to control public and private conduct. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Over the decades accounting regulations have come from various sources. The Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Internal Revenue Service and Interstate Commerce Commission are examples of regulatory bodies that promulgate accounting regulations. A more recent example occurred during the 1970s. During the Watergate era there were a number of investigations, some of which affected American business. One of the investigations, conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1975, revealed that 19 publiclyheld corporations had made illegal campaign contributions and that these contributions were made from cash accounts that had not been recorded on the corporation’s books. (Heldack, 1977) This prompted the SEC to launch an investigation into what were considered ―questionable payments.‖ What came out of the investigation was that many U.S. multinational corporations were making hundreds of millions of dollars in ―questionable payments‖ to foreign officials to obtain business. As a result, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) was unanimously adopted by Congress in 1977. Bribery of foreign officials to obtain business for the corporation

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 primarily as a way for the government to “trust bust” or apply regulations ensuring a free marketplace for U.S. consumers and business enterprises. In this regard, the FTC enforces antitrust viola- tions that could hamper consumer interests, as well as federal consumer protection laws against fraud, deception, and unfair business practices. The commission’s primary enforcement mechanism is the Bureau of Consumer Protection, which is divided into seven divisions: (1) enforcement, (2) advertising practices, (3) financial practices, (4) marketing practices, (5) planning and information, (6) consumer and business educa- tion programs, and (7) privacy and identity protection.21 As the federal

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been pursued by government agencies recently as the SEC, the FBI, and Department of Justice are cracking down on international business corruption. Companies are working harder at expanding economically in the market by doing business with individuals and other companies in foreign countries. Foreign countries are not always in compliance with US laws and regulations, causing US companies who deal with them issues with compliance on the home front. Because of these ongoing issues congress decided to introduce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to prosecute foreign companies for corrupt activities within the United States. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a federal law that was amended in 1977,

The U.S. Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing federal laws and administrating justice systems in the United States. However, the U.S. Department of Justice has a criminal justice system that is not fair for everyone in the country, specifically for those who are mentally ill, or poor. Over the past couple of years in the United States, there have been many innocent people wrongfully convicted and put on death row due to the corruption of the government. The main factor that has been identify as the cause of wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification. The Bedau and Radelet’s study demostrates that there are around 350 wrongful convictions in capital cases. Many abolitionists have arisen against capital punishments, since the exponential increase of exonerations based on DNA or non-DNA evidence. Their goal is to improve the current methods performed by our criminal justice system. The U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged that its current criminal justice system is not being very effective in punishing the guilty. Since there have been many cases of wrongful convictions, many people are starting to question what has been the improvements that the U.S. Department of Justice has make in order to prevent false imprisonment and death penalty of innocent people. The Department of Justice has tried to decrease the number of inmates who were wrongly put on death row by improving prosecutorial accountability, by researching past criminal cases, and by

In 1977, Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which makes it unlawful for U.S. businesspersons or companies to pay, with money or anything else of value, to foreign officials to secure beneficial contracts. The anti-bribery requirements of the FCPA have applied to all U.S. persons since 1977. In 1998, certain amendments were revised and the anti-bribery requirements now apply to foreign firms and persons who cause an act in continuance of bribery within the United States. The government was attempting to restricted illegal behavior, which is why they implemented the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after the SEC discovered that over 400 companies were sending corrupt payments to foreign government officials and

The FPCA was enacted to make it illegal for certain classes of people and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to help assists businesses (The United States Department of Justice, 2015). Many U.S. companies were caught by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bribing foreign officials to keep businesses with them (McGraw & Rufe, 2014). It was something that was inexcusable and the U.S. government wanted to keep it from happening again, so they signed in this Act.

Since 1977, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA have applied to all U.S. persons and certain foreign issuers of securities. With the enactment of certain amendments in 1998, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA now also apply to foreign firms and persons who cause, directly or through agents, an act in furtherance of such a corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States.

Emergency management (EM) addresses how government prepares for, mitigates against, responds to, and recovers from emergencies and disasters. The law regulating this area changes frequently with the goal of improving our ability to prevent loss of life and property; however, a recent legal development has not only hampered emergency management response efforts, but it also threatens to harm the very vulnerable portion of society it is intended to benefit. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has recently adopted an aggressive stance toward enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). First, the legal history leading up to this development will be examined. Second, this new focus and several recent DOJ cases will be

Federal agencies are responsible for a large array of missions and goals, to achieve them all they use a variety of approaches which include but are not limited to contracts for acquiring goods and services ADDIN EN.CITE Weitzel20061127(Weitzel and Berns, 2006)1127112717Weitzel, UtzBerns, SjorsCross-Border Takeovers, Corruption, and Related Aspects of GovernanceJournal of International Business StudiesJournal of International Business Studies786-8063762006Palgrave Macmillan Journals00472506http://www.jstor.org/stable/4540384( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_4" o "Weitzel, 2006 #1127" Weitzel and Berns, 2006). It is very important that the agencies do acquire this goods and services in an effective, efficient and accountable way.

The foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits paying or offering anything of value to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or keeping a business. The FCPA was enacted by congress in 1977 due to various reports that were made by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) reported different issues concerning bribery and illegal payments by United Sates companies. The FCPA states that it’s unlawful to make payments to foreign officials; having a corrupt intend that will make a foreign official to misuse his or her position in directing a business. The FCPA intends to reinstitute public confidence in the integrity of the American business system.

Before 1998 any foreign enterprise or foreigner was not limited by FCPA except foreign enterprise issuers. But the amendment of FCPA in 1998 greatly extended the jurisdiction of U.S government. If any independent foreign enterprise or individual directly or through agent had bribery on foreign officials in U.S they would violate the regulations of FCPA. Except that all the issuers above mentioned, domestic enterprise or employee in foreign enterprises, senior staff, directors, shareholders and agent were restrained by the law. The ministry of justice was authorized to convict the employee of enterprise according to regulations of FCPA whether the enterprise was guilty or not.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is second in discussion which, applies to all companies operating out of the United States. The standard of way to conduct business here in the United States and Japan are to be acknowledged because of the cultural differences. The law requires U.S. organizations to represent and report global exchanges precisely and demoralize the activities of officials that attempt accept any kind of pay off, or monetary motivators in return for opportune and favorable business decisions. While in Japanese business, culturally it might be seen as sign of good gesture to offer government officials financial gains in order to get business advantages, unlike in the United States where it is illegal to do so. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977- is a U.S. Federal Law that