Global liberalization has promoted the progress of international business. With greater flexibility in international trade risks have also increased. So has the number of litigation cases. To maintain international sanctity law enforcing acts have been introduced with stringent penalties such as big fines and imprisonment. Despite all measures there is no reduction in lawsuits and investigations are becoming expansive as well as expensive affairs.
FCPA: The international sheriff
Bribing is a very convenient tactic that is instrumental in increasing the number of illegal transactions abroad and strong punitive action need to be meted to the perpetrators. The FCPA or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been introduced and enforced to ensure law abiding dealings within the international circuit.
This is a federal law that prohibits bribing officials of foreign governments. Companies that indulge in and practice illegal business can face harsh sentences for violation of federal laws. As per the FCPA all companies conducting international business have to maintain clean records with all transaction and asset details documented accurately. They need to implement an internal system of accounting that is transparent.
eDiscovery aids for FCPA investigations and compliance
eDiscovery plays a critical role in FCPA investigations. Any email or other electronic documents that are liable to expose the bribe transactions can be extracted through
eDiscovery search. As per the rule the eDiscovery search has to be conducted across the various repositories and custodians of all the countries.
Thus a thorough investigation of email servers, laptops, desktops, mobile phones, external drives and any data needs to be scrutinized regardless of the language and the format. This is a massive task and can be quite a deterring one. While performing the eDiscovery search it is necessary to abide by data privacy laws that may be prevalent in some countries. The advantage is that eDiscovery can help recover any data that has been deleted either willfully or accidentally.
In FCPA investigation the
eDiscovery operation takes place in 4 stages- collection, processing, extraction and investigation.
1. Data collection – This stage constitutes the phase where all types of electronic and physical data is collected for further reviewing. This includes all emails and files on the server, hard drives, CDs, cell phones, USB drives, camcorders, digital music players. The eDiscovery process should ensure the safety of the retrieved data to prevent any damaging incidents. Courts are not very kind in cases where the ESI is not stored and preserved properly.
2. Processing - In this stage the data is marked, labeled and tagged in a systematic manner to help locate it easily. The processing stage needs to be especially concerned about the individuals that need to be reviewed, the tools and storage methods that will be necessary for migration, filtering and categorization of data,
3. Analysis and extraction – In this stage the data is organized in a manner that helps the investigator to review the process without any complications. The data produced is filtered using specific but flexible keywords and search options to eliminate a mass of useless data. Rigid keyword search could negate the results.
4. Investigation- This is the final stage where the investigator presents a complete picture with the necessary evidences in place.
FCPA investigations are meant for ensuring the reputation of organizations and prevent any financial losses. There are several complexities involved which can be easily unraveled by the electronic discovery search. The solutions that are provided follow a well-etched strategy EDiscovery and FCPA together have the potential to curb all illegal dealings.