Fact Sheets -
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Services
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While U.S. based organizations continue their global expansion and collaborate with new partners abroad, corporate executives and directors must remain alert to avoid potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Enacted in 1977, the FCPA restricts U.S. corporations and nationals from giving money or any items of value to a foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA also mandates that publicly-listed corporations maintain internal controls that accurately reflect foreign transactions and to confirm that all transactions comply with the FCPA. Many other jurisdictions have enacted similar anti-bribery legislation. International Risk is uniquely qualified to help clients develop and independently to monitor the necessary internal controls to comply with FCPA or similar legislation, and to investigate suspected violations. This is especially relevant in Asia, where attitudes towards corruption can be quite different culturally, as confirmed annually by Transparency International rankings.

How International Risk Helps Clients Avoid Major Risks

International Risk has a global investigative capability and expert level experience in conducting fact-gathering, electronic discovery, financial and forensic accounting investigations. With offices across Asia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing, we have the resources and experience to perform investigations wherever needed. Our clients benefit from the unparalleled depth of our intellectual capital and applied practical knowledge. Our professionals draw from wide collective experience with innumerable previous engagements across a wide variety of industries. We provide cost-effective and phased solutions, ensuring that issues are resolved quickly and efficiently.

Relevant Expertise for All Phases of an Investigation

Our team is highly adept at discovering and analyzing the most sophisticated breaches of internal controls, unwinding complicated transactions and reconstructing events from incomplete information or corrupt data. We investigate the financial data and discover how and when a suspicious event or transaction took place. We then assist in responding to allegations, preparing for any third party audits, and designing controls and systems that will help prevent future occurrences.

Data Forensics

Our investigations and forensic accounting professionals also work closely with our Data Forensics experts to analyze complicated transactions and secure vital evidence. In depth computer forensic expertise is essential to the investigation or discovery process as a majority of business documents nowadays is stored in electronic format. Our professionals are able to forensically secure, retain, analyse, produce and make sense of large volumes of electronic data from multiple sources, including e-mail, voice mail, shared server files and databases. International Risk provides recognized technical, forensic and financial experts who use state-of-the-art forensic and data mining tools to efficiently recover, search, sort, sift and analyze massive amounts of electronic data.

Development, Implementation, and Monitoring of Internal Control Systems

Our professionals provide best practice advice and recommendations on systems that will be most effective across your organization, to prevent and detect any irregularities that may lead to breaches of the FCPA or similar provisions. We have extensive experience in developing manuals, training, monitoring and whistleblower systems. In addition, we can provide advice on existing systems you have in place, using our practical Asian experience to provide effective and workable recommendations that fit the cultural paradigms in this part of the world.

Our services in this area include:

Investigations

  • Fact-finding investigations to obtain critical evidence and identify relevant individuals, to include witness interviews
  • Forensic accounting reviews of books,accounting records and other financial data to determine the extent and financial implications of suspicious activities
  • Research and advisory services to support preliminary accounting and reporting positions
  • Assistance in responding to subpoenas and requests for information
  • Electronic discovery of deleted and corrupted data, as well as data reconstruction
  • Document production support
  • Preparation of formal reports to regulators and law enforcement, etc
  • Assistance with settlement negotiations

    • Internal Controls

  • Design and implementation of internal controls to prevent any breaches of the FCPA or similar legislation
  • Independent Internal Controls reviews on FCPA or equivalent compliance systems
  • Monitoring and internal review testing of policies and procedures pursuant to settlement agreements

    • Due Diligence

  • Pre-transaction due diligence reviews, to assess the potential risks of buying into questionable entities, focusing on off balance sheet issues, including those related to FCPA (non) compliance and potential future exposure to FCPA or similar breaches based on less than arms length relationships between parties
  • Review of written policies and procedures to ensure compliance with applicable regulations
  • Review of subsidiaries, joint ventures and other controlled entities for appropriate internal controls
  • Review of consultants, agents, resellers, distributors and other third-party representatives
  • Review of customer lists for foreign government or foreign official involvement and ownership interests

    • Risk Assessments

  • Analysis and identification of key risks for each foreign operating division, sales region or defined entity
  • Testing of gaps in the compliance program related to relevant risks and design of appropriate internal controls to mitigate these risks
  • Recommendation of solutions including restructuring and other policy changes
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