From time-to-time, The Man From FCPA is asked about policies surrounding extortion payments, which are completely exempted out of the FCPA. Extortion payments are made for any action that threatens or demands payment for life, liberty, or health. These should be exempted out from your facilitation payments and your compliance program through specific language. You need to do this for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, your employees must understand that the company will support them if they are in any way threatened with harm, arrest, or physical detention, their health/safety is threatened. As a compliance professional, you need to make sure they understand they need to do whatever they have to do to get themselves out of such a situation.
