Although it is generally known that the FCPA prohibits those that are subject to it from making bribes to foreign governmental officials, many are not aware that “the FCPA prohibits payments to foreign officials, but not to foreign governments.” The annihilation of the transparency rule merely takes away the need for companies to fully disclose payments to foreign governments, the payment to which not outlawed under the FCPA.  It does not grant companies the ability to bribe foreign government officials, as the FCPA continues to prohibit payments to foreign government officials.

ComplianceinChina.com conducted surveys on Chinese corporate compliance management for three consecutive years. Under the auspices of ComplianceinChina.com, one of the largest and earliest compliance platforms in China, The Compliance Reviews (www.compliance.reviews or www.compliancereviews.cn) is an English electronic journal aiming to enhance compliance and risk management in Asia and beyond.

Predictive Coding (AKA: algorithm assisted "text categorization") refers to the use of a software program to identify documents that are relevant or responsive to a particular case or issue, based on a review of test documents (or a population of "seed sets", "validation sets" and "training sets") by lawyers and subject matter experts. The computer assisted methodology involves a machine learning process and a combination of different algorithmic tools.

International investors and businessmen often discover that fraud is not uncommon among their counterparts in China. There exists the perception among some foreign firms that the alleged fraud must be reported to the police in order to successfully resolve contractual fraud disputes. However, this is not always the ideal method and in fact may be detrimental to successful dispute resolution......

In two corruption cases a decade apart, two governmental officials from the China Food and Drug Administration were heavily punished for taking bribes and endangering the lives of many Chinese Citizens.  Not only were they punished, so were their family members. Chinese Criminal Law provides that bribes taken by the family members of an official would be attributed to the amount of bribes taken by the official himself.

This issue neatly summarises a significant problem faced by many organisations. Despite the best efforts of an organisation’s leadership, the message can become lost on its way to front line staff. That is why the focus for a robust compliance culture should not only be on the tone from the top, but also the tone from the middle.  

Specifically, it should be the role of middle management to; identify and communicate the compliance risks that arise in their areas of responsibility within the business; to encourage their staff to raise compliance concerns to the management team......

In China bribes are often offered and accepted for the sale and procurement of medical devices and pharmaceuticals.  Doctors or managers of hospitals and clinics who accept bribes to buy, use, or recommend the Healthcare Products have been known to prescribe or even over-prescribe procedures that warrant use of such products.  As a result, products supported by bribery sell more quickly and at a higher price than products for which lower or no bribes are paid.

In January 2010, 15 of the 16 Liuzhou factories entered into a collusion agreement with Xian Yi Ge Food Factory to raise the price of rice powder, and Xian Yi Ge adopted carrot-and-stick measures to make sure the agreement would be executed.  As a result of the agreement, the colluding rice powder factories issued notice of a 25 percent-plus price increase to downstream business operators, including rice powder wholesalers, retailers, rice powder food peddlers and stores.