Hacker News Reader

Comment by gwd | Hacker News Reader

It is worth pointing out that (at least according to the corporate training I have to take every year) this is considered illegal by the US government for a US citizen to do even not on US soil; if the Feds get wind of it and feel like making a point they could throw you in jail, even with an intermediary "fixer".

View on HN

That's why these services are usually provided by "expat services agencies" that do these things intransparently to your knowledge.

Other common terms are “broker” or “agent”. I pay the agent. He deals with the local bureaucracy. He knows what things should cost.

AKA; ...'eeeeyyyyy, IgottaGuy..."

In my experience, they are more professional. I engage with a firm who offers "customs brokerage" and "agent" services. They take care of any local payments necessary. I get a proper invoice that I pay with a wire transfer.

Yooz nedda'h gotta'h guy.. den, huz?

It's amazing how based on the label, people are fooled.

At least people in Vietnam don't kid themselves and call a bribe a bribe.

The FCPA allows "grease payments" to officials performing their official duties.

As a consultant, I have to take FCPA training an average of 3 times a year. So although I’m not a lawyer, my take is that it’s only allowed if you can point to official documentation that lays out an expedited action fee schedule.

Paying a third party is just as illegal. However, unless you’re expecting to run for Congress, nobody is going to care that you bribed some low level foreign customs agent to get your ink cartridges released.

You didn't pay close enough attention in class. The US FCPA [0] explicitly allows "grease payments" (which is what we are talking about here) so long as they're not illegal in the country in question.

Grease payments are paid for the purpose of expediting a task that a low-level official is required to do anyway as part of their job, e.g. release a package from customs hell.

The FCPA prohibits bribes which are payments intended to influence high-level decision-makers to make a decision in your favor when they are not otherwise required to do so.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Ac...

There were some massive bribery scandals in the late 70s where pretty much entire governments were coopted by US corporates that these laws arose in response to.

Where we get the term "Banana Republic!" for such dispicibles as the DOLE family - who, we only know the white-washed name by their offspring Bob Dole charading as a nice ol' grampa type but a good ol' corporate boy.

One of the major scandals associated with the Dole family is the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Sanford Ballard Dole used his government influence and self-appointed position in Hawaii to push the US toward taking over the islands in the late 1890s. The Dole fruit company in Hawaii rose out of the bloodless Hawaiian coup staged by the Dole and the US government in 1893. Another scandal involved the Dole Food Company, where a jury found that Dole should pay $2.5 million in punitive damages to five workers who claimed they were made sterile by use of a pesticide on Nicaraguan banana plantations in the 1970s.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com