Here is the Financial times:
Donald Trump ordered the Ministry of Justice to stop enforcing an American anti-corruption law that forbids Americans to buy foreign government officials to win things.
In the past I did that multiple post claim that the US must prohibit companies to pay money to those who deal with “ransomware”, with long prison conditions for offenders. I have argued that these types of regulations would help things by making them a less lucrative target for extortion. In the comments sections there were many objections to my argument – acknowledges that it would not work. But nobody has given Good reasons Why I was wrong, just not -built -up statements.
Normally you would not assume that companies would prefer regulations that limited the way they could act. But the FT article offers one proof that I was right:
The decision attracted criticism from anti-corruption experts who said that stopping the enforcement of the American companies that are active abroad would harm.
“Most [US] Companies appreciate the fact that the FCPA enables them to refuse bribes, because most companies in the private sector-wise-selling outline, ”Richard Nephew, a former coordinator against corruption at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted on x.
The same argument applies to ransomware attacks. Given the choice, I would rather be allowed overseas bribery than domestic bribery. But I am not sure whether both types of bribery are in our interest.
On a related comment, Ken White Reports that President Trump and Elon Musk use lawsuits against groups that criticize them:
Trump, who has long been preferred for fake rights as a weapon against his enemies, has had a censural bender. He alone in the past year: A poll star charged For bad poll results; CBS For supposedly editing a Kamala Harris interview to make her look better; And ABC and George Stephanopoulos To bound a description of the judgment of sexual abuse by E. Jean Carroll against him. Meanwhile, Musk has sued both media cases as the Center for combating digital hatred For reporting about hate speech on X .. .
Trump’s election has led to a cascade of powerful media companies that arrange dubious Trump rights. Facebook is Pay $ 25 million To arrange Trump’s claim that the social media site has violated its first amendment rights by moderating him, another argument that is generally seen as dull. ABC paid $ 15 million To arrange Trump’s claims. That case had more merit, but ABC’s abrupt surrender is disturbing. It is disturbing when media companies admit instead of fighting for the first amendment, but Trump is not a normal claimant – he can apply the power of the state against enemies.
These business payments are not bribes in a legal sense, but they are made clear to Curry for important government policy makers. White reports that California has passed a law to protect people against such frivolous lawsuits:
A weak stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation and the goal is not to remedy a real error, but to suppress the expression on a public issue. In the early 1990s, the lawyers in California noticed that real estate developers, confronted with environmental and neighborhood protests against new developments, abused the legal system by suggesting the demonstrators. The packs of merit missed, but because of our broken civil legal system they were a successful deterioration. The legislative power of California passed The first anti-slapp statute-a state law that offers the defendants a special remedy when someone turns to them about his speech. According to California’s Anti-Slapp law, if a defendant can show the judge that the plaintiff complains for potentially protected speech, the plaintiff must come forward with permissible evidence that shows that he may win the case. If they cannot do that, the judge rejects the case and the claimant must pay the lawyer’s fees of the suspect. It is a game changer.