Facilitation Payment
Definition
A small payment to a government official to expedite a routine official action. The FCPA exempts such payments; the UK Bribery Act does not. Most compliance programs prohibit them regardless of local law.
- Purpose
- Expedite a routine official action
- FCPA treatment
- Exempted
- UK Bribery Act treatment
- Not exempted
- Corporate policy norm
- Most compliance programs prohibit them regardless of local law
Common questions
Why do compliance programs ban facilitation payments even where FCPA would allow them?+
A company operating internationally is typically subject to multiple anti-bribery regimes at once, including the UK Bribery Act which has no facilitation payment exception, so a blanket internal ban avoids the complexity of tracking which jurisdiction's rules apply to a given payment and reduces overall legal exposure.
How does an investigator distinguish a facilitation payment from a bribe?+
The key distinction is that a facilitation payment is meant only to speed up an official's performance of a duty they were already obligated to perform, such as processing a permit, whereas a bribe is meant to influence a discretionary decision or obtain an improper advantage the official would not otherwise grant.
Related terms
- Adequate Procedures
- The defence to the Section 7 corporate offence under the UK Bribery Act. A commercial organisation must show it had in place...
- Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA)
- An agreement between a prosecutor and a company in which criminal charges are filed but prosecution is deferred in exchange for cooperation,...
- Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
- A US federal statute that prohibits US-listed companies, their officers, and agents from bribing foreign government officials. Applies extraterritorially, meaning the conduct...
- OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
- The 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, requiring its 44 signatories to criminalise active...
- UK Bribery Act 2010
- A UK statute that criminalises both public and private sector bribery, covers any person (not only government officials), and creates a strict-liability...