“Mexico is an extremely important player in the world economy. With respect to the United States alone, Mexico is its third largest goods trading partner,” TRACE President Alexandra Wrage said. “Knowing the pressure points of doing business in Mexico is a critical first step in tailoring an effective anti-bribery compliance program. The BRIBEline Mexico Report gives concrete information about the people who are requesting bribes in Mexico, how frequently such requests are made and what the bribe seekers hope to achieve.”

The largest percentage of overall bribe solicitations, 45 percent, comes from the police, according to the BRIBEline study. Bribe demands from federal officials come in at 12 percent overall.

“The BRIBEline Mexico results present two compliance challenges,” Wrage said. “First, frequent demands for small amounts of cash are very difficult to track and properly record on a company’s books and records. Second, training employees and third party agents who are conducting business in Mexico to properly respond to extortionate demands for cash, which are often made by a police officer, is no easy task either.”

The full BRIBEline report is available at www.bribeline.org.

Brazil has already announced a few positive steps in this direction. For example, the country announced that deforestation in the Amazon has been slowed by 45 percent over the past four years. Over 50 percent of Brazil’s energy comes from renewable sources, according to a report by Forbes. And the government is proposing a new law that would give federal grants and other assistance to land owners that attempt to reintroduce native vegetation to their land.

The clients say that the Willis Group illegally vouched for R. Allen Stanford, the owner of Stanford Financial Group, in letters he sent to his customers, according to a report by Bloomberg News. The complaint alleges that Willis acted as a sales agent for Stanford Financial, crossing the line of being solely an insurance broker.

All of the plaintiffs in this case are from Venezuela. A previous, similar case was filed on behalf of former Mexican clients of Stanford.

A spokesperson for the Willis Group told the New York Times that “it did not suspect any of its workers knew of fraud at Stanford” and that the company will “defend itself vigorously.”

Forty people were arrested, including Pedro Ripper, president of Cisco Brazil, and Carlos Carnevali, vice president of Cisco Latin America. Additionally, Brazilian authorities have contacted U.S. law enforcement agencies requesting arrest warrants for five more suspects in the United States.

Cisco released an official statement claiming full cooperation with the Brazilian authorities. They also note in the release that Cisco doesn’t conduct direct sales in the country, the company goes through various third parties instead.

On a related topic, Brazil has notoriously high taxes across the board. Although their ICMS tax (goods and services tax) is a state tax paid by businesses, it’s generally passed along to consumers as a sort of hidden sales tax. For example, one group estimates Brazilians pay 36 percent extra for pencils as a result of taxes, and 40 percent extra for toilet paper. This has led to a proclivity towards tax avoidance for some Brazilians, businesses included.

David A. DeLorenzo, President and CEO of Dole champions the cause by saying:

“The environment is a concern for all of us. Companies, consumers, governments and non-governmental organizations should endeavor to promote and adopt new production and distribution methods and consumption behavior in order to reverse harmful trends to the environment.”

Read more here.

The closing marked the second penalty in a year for Cafe del Mar, as it faced a $37,000 fine last October for similar allegations. It was the same agency that busted the club each time. In October, the club reportedly allowed a light-skinned couple to enter, but refused admission to a dark-skinned couple because there was a “private party”.

Read the story as printed in USA Today.

ABB said the probe is uncovering payments of concern made in Asia, South America, and Europe (with a particular focus on Italy).

The company disclosed that it was investigating several cases of suspect payments and it was unclear whether they were linked. ABB said it had not made any provisions and it was not sure how much money could be involved.

Commentary: Gee… this must be an isolated incident (with payments of concern found only in ASIA, SOUTH AMERICA, AND EUROPE). We checked their website and they do not have operations in Antarctica, which could account for that continent’s exclusion. Our opinion is that this is pretty lame as ABB has had multiple scandals in recent years (such as a secret executive pay scandal in 2004 and a financial fraud scandal back in 2000). There really is no excuse at this point for not having a robust compliance program in place that could prevent the most basic of illegal business practices: bribery.

This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, the World Bank, UPS, Tyco International, and Rolls-Royce.

BRIBEline (the acronym stands for the “Business Registry for International Bribery and Extortion”) is essentially an online survey that is available in 14 languages. While no names are required or collected, the survey asks participants to respond to ten multiple-choice questions. All information is kept anonymous so that reports cannot be used for legal investigations or prosecutions.

Ultimately, the information gathered through BRIBEline will be collected and publicly reported by TRACE in hopes of highlighting where the worst offenders reside in terms of country, ministry, or sector. This in turn will help companies target their compliance and anti-corruption efforts.

Commentary: We think that this is a fabulous tool that reflects the excellent leadership in anti-corruption demonstrated by TRACE’s leader, Alexandra Wrage. There has been a real dearth of information about where bribes are occurring, with companies limited to examining only their own experience and DOJ prosecution and investigation records.

We strongly encourage companies to get involved with BRIBEline and look forward to some of the interesting trends and information that come as a result.

Allegedly, soon after Coca-Cola launched Dasani in Argentina in late 2005, the bottled water has been smeared as “bottled tap water” and “cancer water” on the Internet. It is Coke’s position that there is strong evidence linking Danone and Euro RSCG to the two-year long campaign.

And, as the Internet has “no borders”, the campaign appears to have spread to other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. Coca-Cola said that this has negatively impacted their business.

Commentary: Want to know a few interesting facts?

Interesting fact #1 – - While, theoretically, the penalties could be huge (up to $10,000 per consumer), they won’t be. This is in part because under Argentine law, any fines/penalties/damages in this case would not be paid to Coca-Cola but instead to the Argentine state treasury. Coca-Cola probably isn’t looking for big fines so much as to make a statement, offset some bad publicity, and to have the practice stopped.

Interesting fact #2: Unfortunately, the history of Dasani is not crystal clean, which will cloud up Coca-Cola’s case. In fact, back in March 2004 the company had to recall it from the shelves in the UK due to excessive levels of cancer-causing bromate being present in the bottled water.

Interesting fact #3 – - Evian is a huge bottle water brand/supplier (owned by Danone). Guess who the U.S. distributor is? Answer: Coca-Cola.

At issue was that Mr. Pinera, a Board of Director member of the company, bought the airline’s stock just a few days before a strong earnings report in July of last year. Mr Pinera had advance knowledge of the report – and took advantage of this inside knowledge to profit from his sudden 3 million share purchase.

Two other stockholders in the airline also were fined. Pinera indicated he would not appeal the fine, which he called ‘politically motivated’.

Commentary: Another example of the “globalization” of insider trading.

This is the second time American Express Bank International has been investigated for laundering money. The company had to pay $7 million in fines as well as release $25 million dollars of illegitimate money dealing with a case involving the Juan Garcia Abrego drug gang in Mexico.

Read the entire story in Forbes.