ATE - Third Party Due Diligence and the New FCPA Guidance: Risk-Based Due Diligence in Practice

2012 closed with the release of the highly anticipated FCPA guidance, which brought much needed clarity to the compliance community on a number of concepts, including third party due diligence. The Guide makes it clear that corrupt payments made through third parties and intermediaries are expressly prohibited under the FCPA, and will not be tolerated by the DOJ and SEC. Companies are encouraged to perform risk-based due diligence on third parties and merger and acquisition targets and understand the associations and qualifications of partners. But what do the guiding principles mean in practice and what changes, if any, should companies make?In this session, Alexandra Wrage, President of TRACE, discusses the challenges faced by companies with global operations and provide practical advice on conducting third party due diligence and developing a system of ongoing monitoring of third-party relationships. Our expertAlexandra Wrage is the president of TRACE. She is also the editor of How to Pay a Bribe: Thinking Like a Criminal to Thwart Bribery Schemes, the author of Bribery and Extortion: Undermining Business, Governments and Security and the host of the training DVD Toxic Transactions: Bribery, Extortion and the High Price of Bad Business produced by NBC. Ms. Wrage has written three compliance guidebooks and is a guest blogger on the Huffington Post. She speaks frequently on topics of international law, innovative compliance initiatives and the hidden costs of corruption, and regularly authors articles appearing in the business and legal media, including a bi-weekly column for Corporate Counsel.\r
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Ms. Wrage currently serves on the Independent Governance Committee (IGC) of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), football's governing body. She has previously served as Chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the ABA's International Section and Chair of the International Legal Affairs Committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel. She has participated in anti-bribery working groups with the OECD and the UN Global Compact. Ms. Wrage was named one of the 'Canadians Changing the World' by the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2011 and one of Maryland's Top 100 Women and Most Admired CEOs for 2012 by the Daily Record.\r
Prior to founding TRACE, Ms. Wrage was international counsel at Northrop Grumman where she was responsible for managing and improving the company's compliance program, including policy revisions, training, monitoring and board briefings.\r
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Ms. Wrage, a Canadian, studied law at Kings College, Cambridge University. She lives now in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband and two sons.\r