Hacker News Reader

Comment by eternauta3k | Hacker News Reader

Similar thing happened in Argentina: started to construct a nuclear power plant, stopped construction for 10 years. But it was eventually finished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atucha_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Atu...

PS: Isn't it illegal for Americans to bribe people abroad? Why is this guy openly admitting to it?

View on HN

I paid a bribe to get my cat out of quarantine in Nigeria when I lived in Lagos years ago. Nobody's coming after me for that.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes bribery a crime for business-related reasons.

>Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.

That's one sentence. Good job DoJ!

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...

That's a mouthful of a sentence. Wikipedia's summary is a bit more direct.

> The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests.

So if your cat is the star performer of your cat circus show business, you could have technically broken the law :p

It's not really a business interest though.

If the government is holding the gear for your show in customs, and is going to hold it for 3 months, but with a payment it can be released next week and your show can happen and you make a lot of money from ticket sales, that sounds very much like a business interest, and thus a bribe according to the FCPA. That the "gear" is a live cat in my ludicrous example seems immaterial of it's a bribe or not.

Umm yeah but in this case they just wanted to take a few pics for curiosity's sake. It doesn't look like the site they published them on even makes them money, there's no ads.

I didn't claim their cat was a business expense, but presented a scenario where it could be considered one. I don't see what their site has to do with my hypothetical.

The most interesting part is some bribes are not bribes by law. They call it facilitation payment! In legal terms there is nothing bad in paying corrupted employee of some government office to do his work. Imagine you had all papers correct for your cat, but they anyway would not release your cat from quarantine, without any reason. Then your facilitation payment is not a bribe.

Not everyone is American. The author is British: https://lithub.com/author/darmonrichter/, https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2019/05/31/finding-beau...

> Criminal violations of the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) anti-bribery provisions must be enforced within five years of the last act required to complete the crime or violation. Criminal violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions have a six-year statute of limitations.

https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/resources/anti-bribe...

how convenient /s

I wonder if it’s only illegal for corporations to pay bribes but not individuals

Reply on news.ycombinator.com