In a highly anticipated decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Friday largely sided with federal prosecutors’ broad definition of what constitutes a “foreign official” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
A unanimous three-judge Eleventh Circuit panel found that Haiti Teleco is an “instrumentality” of the Haitian state, and therefore its employees qualify as foreign officials under the U.S. antibribery law. The ruling upholds the convictions of two former executives of Terra Telecommunications who were convicted in August 2012 of bribing officials at Haiti Teleco.
