The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was passed in 1977, prohibiting U.S. companies from bribing all foreign companies, governments, and political parties. Since it came into effect, the law has long been questioned by major U.S. industry giants and was considered to put domestic companies at a disadvantage in the export market. Therefore, it was not implemented vigorously in the early stages.
In 1998, the U.S. Congress amended the law to give it extraterritorial effect and also apply to foreign companies. As long as a company signs cooperation in U.S. dollars, payment occurs in U.S. territory, or simply sends and stores emails through servers located in the U.S., these are considered "international trade tools," and the U.S. believes it has the right to sue.
In this case, Alstom used a bank account in the United States to pay bribes into the accounts of Indonesian officials in the name of "consulting fees," which triggered a follow-up investigation by the United States.
This law seems "just", but there are often "American exceptions" in operation. According to Pierucci's investigation, in the nearly 40 years of trialling this law, the U.S. Department of Justice has never found any fault with the overseas transactions of the country's oil giants or defense giants.
According to a survey, from 1977 to 2014, foreign companies suffered “fines” accounting for 67% of the total, with European companies in particular making the highest “contribution”. Since 2008, 26 companies have finally paid fines exceeding US$100 million, including 14 European companies and 5 French companies. Large French companies such as Total, Alcatel, Societe Generale, and Alstom have all paid fines of more than US$100 million. "On the list." All these fines eventually went into the U.S. treasury.
Extended information
At the beginning of 2019, "The American Trap" was co-authored by Frédéric Pierucci, a former executive of the French Alstom company, and a French journalist. The book was published in France and caused a huge response. This book uses Pierucci's personal experience to reveal the inside story of the US government's crackdown on US corporate competitors. Recently, a CCTV reporter interviewed Pierucci in Paris. As a client, he told us the story of the American trap.
April 14, 2013, JFK Airport, New York, USA. Pierucci, then the global head of the boiler department of the French core energy company "Alstom Group", was arrested by FBI agents as soon as he got off the plane. ?
The moment he was arrested, Pierucci knew that his employer was competing fiercely with General Electric in the global market, so they were also targeted by the U.S. judicial agencies.
Pierucci said that although he was not the mastermind of the bribery case, nor was he the highest-ranking among the 13 people involved, he was still charged by U.S. prosecutors with violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiring to launder money. He was prosecuted on 10 counts including 10 crimes. If the lawsuit is established, he will face a total of 125 years in prison.
It wasn’t until April 2014 that a piece of news suddenly dawned on Pierucci. It turned out that Pierucci was just an "economic hostage", and the ultimate target of the United States' "hunting" was Alstom, the biggest competitor of General Electric in the United States. ?
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