All Things FCPA

Several chapters of Crude World delve into oil corruption, and that means I have spent an unhealthy amount of time looking into prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which Congress passed in 1977 to criminalize bribery of foreign officials. After decades of gathering dust, the law has gotten a modest workout in recent years. Where does one learn about the latest cases? Mainstream media coverage of FCPA enforcement is sporadic at best. It’s a manifestation of the current media climate (meaning, less news from newspapers) that my go-to site for FCPA information is a little blog that goes by the name of The FCPA Blog (they don’t win points for an original name). It’s run by a six-lawyer firm, Cassin Law, that’s apparently based in Singapore and specializes in business law. Why or how the blog came about, and who at Cassin actually writes the thing, I don’t know. What I know is that the blog, though having its flaws, provides excellent information and commentary on FCPA happenings.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.