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You misunderstand...

You misunderstand...

Posted Jul 4, 2009 18:09 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by dwheeler
Parent article: Tiemann: Open Source Incentives

You certainly can not give any official money. But you can add stipulations to your gift if you are charity! And if these stipulations help your company... why it's a big deal? Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation always worked this way - I don't see anything surprising there...

Basically consider this "charity" part of PR department of Microsoft and all will be good.


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You misunderstand...

Posted Jul 5, 2009 1:15 UTC (Sun) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

Maybe you misunderstand. The FCPA makes providing "gifts" to foreign governments for the purpose of securing sales illegal. It also makes putting conditions on gifts illegal if those conditions require the purchase or use of US products. The FCPA was passed to stop the commercial interference in foreign governments that caused endless problems for US foreign policy and harmed people.

You misunderstand...

Posted Jul 5, 2009 2:03 UTC (Sun) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]

Actually, are you sure? The actual text of the FCPA seems to imply that the "gift" needs to go to a foreign official, a foreign political party or party official, or any candidate for foreign political office (from the lay-person's guide, cf. ยง78dd-2(a)(1,2,3)) which would not seem to conver "gifts" to the entire country's schooling system or whatever.

You misunderstand...

Posted Jul 5, 2009 18:28 UTC (Sun) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]

"Basically consider this "charity" part of PR department of Microsoft and all will be good."

Then that 'charity' should not be tax-exempt.

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