1
© 2016 Morrison & Foerster LLP | mofo.com
Attorney Advertising
Client Alert
February 16, 2016
Top Ten International Anti-Corruption
Developments for January 2016
By the MoFo FCPA and Global Anti-Corruption Team
In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below
some of the most important international anti-corruption developments in the past month, with links to primary
resources. For our first installment of 2016, we ask: Which countries fared the best and worst in Transparency
International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index? Which OECD member country was the latest to issue
guidance on effective compliance programs? What penalties did individuals and companies convicted of anti-
bribery offenses in the United States, Brazil, and the UK receive? The answers to these questions and more are
here in our January 2016 Top Ten list:
1. Transparency International Releases Annual Corruption Perceptions Index. On January 27, 2016,
Transparency International (TI) released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The CPI, which
measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 168 countries, provides one of the major
data-points used by compliance officers, outside counsel, and enforcement officials in assessing the anti-
corruption risk of doing business in particular countries. Denmark came out on top as being perceived as
the least corrupt country, while North Korea and Somalia tied for last place. Brazil saw one of the largest
falls in rankings (from 69 to 76), likely because of revelations that have surfaced during the ongoing
investigation into corruption related to state-oil company Petroleo Brasiliero SA (Petrobras). According to
TI, more countries improved their scores in 2015 than experienced a decrease. However, two-thirds of all
countries still scored below 50—the mid-point between “perceived to be highly corrupt” (0) and “perceived
to be very clean” (100). TI considers scores below 50 to indicate that a country has a “serious corruption
problem.”
2. U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Haitian Official’s Bid to Overturn FCPA-Related Money Laundering
Conviction. In March 2012, Jean Rene Duperval, a former director of international relations for Haiti’s
state-owned and state-controlled phone company, Haiti Teleco, was convicted by a South Florida jury of
laundering bribe payments he received from two Miami-based telecommunications companies. Duperval
was later sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. On January 11, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied
Duperval’s petition for certiorari, 1 letting stand a February 2015 Eleventh Circuit opinion 2 that addressed
two important FCPA issues: (1) whether and under what circumstances a state-owned enterprise can be
considered an “instrumentality” under the FCPA and (2) the scope of the FCPA’s “routine governmental
action” (or “facilitating payment”) exception. (See our client alert for more analysis of the Eleventh
1 Duperval v. United States, No. 15-7117, 136 S. Ct. 859 (Jan. 11, 2016) (denying petition for writ of certiorari).
2 United States v. Duperval, 777 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2015).
