The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) world is littered with cases involving freight forwarders, brokers and agents in the shipping and express delivery arena. Both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have aggressively pursued third party business relationships where bribery and corruption have been found. This is particularly true where companies are required to deliver goods into a foreign country through the assistance of a freight forwarder or express delivery service. There are several major risk points. These include:

• Location, location, location;

• Customs and other governmental agencies;

• Aviation and postal regulators;

• Business promotion expenditures for governmental officials;

• Agents and sub-agents; and

• Government accounts are a major part of express shipper customers so must analyze this as well.