In a December post I asked readers how they would rule in an FCPA-related case recently before U.S. federal trial judge Melinda Harmon.  As judge Harmon was required to do when deciding the case, readers were asked to assume the following was true:  The chief executive of Hyperdynamics Corporation, a Houston-based oil exploration company, had established “American Friends of Guinea,” an NGO, in 2006 after the Guinean government had threatened to revoke the company’s oil concession, its sole asset; and shortly after “Friends” was created, the government approved a renegotiated concession.  In 2007, when the government again threatened its concession, “Friends” made a substantial contribution of medicines to care for Guineans stricken with cholera, and in 2009, after the government again reaffirmed the concession, Hyperdynamics donated company stock to “Friends.”  Finally, in 2011 the firm itself gave government ministries some $30,000 worth of computer equipment.

Well, readers, what do you think?  Do the above allegations, if true, state a plausible violation of the FCPA?  That is, could a reasonable jury, or judge sitting as a finder of facts, infer from them that one or more of the donations was actually a bribe Hyperdynamics paid to Guinean government officials in return for allowing it keep its oil concession? Continue reading →