I'm Alexander Rogge and for today's Trace Compliance Minute, Richard Grime of Gibson Dunn and Crutcher,

will describe some risks associated with the books and records provision and provide some tips.

Thanks, Alexander. If you're a public company, the SEC and DOJ regard books and records is very important.

You need to keep all of those books and records all to be accurate. What does it mean? That means that

essentially they need to be reasonably accurate, not perfectly accurate, but they do need to be

truthful and transparent in what they say. That means that with respect to accounting records,

they need to truly record and show exactly what has happened. So, for example, if you are making payments to a third-party consultant, and it turns out that

there's a risk behind that, if you don't properly flag that in the description, the government

will believe that that's not an accurate book or record.

Keep in mind as well, if you're ever thinking of walking into the government on a self-disclosure,

that even if you haven't found bribery, if there's a book or record that's inaccurate,

the government will tag you on that.

Keep in mind as well when you train people around the world that this is not an obvious piece

of most government's anti-bribery laws.

The books and records provision is a very U.S. centric provision and is a very

broad provision that covers, frankly, all financial records, most business records, and you just need

to keep that in mind as you compile your materials to support your transactions, that they are

truly accurate. And in particular, they're not just literally accurate.

In other words, payment to consultant,

but if, in fact, ones that show a purpose,

you need to demonstrate and show and describe that purpose accurately.