In all fairness to Jefferson, he got this really sad e-mail about the Nigerian VP's kidnapped daughter, and how he needed to get more internet coverage in Nigeria as a ransom. Jefferson himself was promised a nice percentage of the profits for his assistance in the project, so at the time it looked win-win.

It's actually the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the result of some big scandals around 30 years ago involving the bribery of foreign officials by U.S. corporations. Although the anti-bribery provisions are what people have heard about, most of it deals with accounting requirements.

Yes, it's a shady practice and yadda yadda yadda, but this is how business is done in most of the world, and I've gotta think that businesses (and, I guess, politicians) are typically forced into the difficult situation of either breaking the law or putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

You'd be right. I can tell you from personal experience, based on trying to do deals in places like Thailand and Brazil, that American companies are at a huge disadvantage because of the FCPA when they are going up against European or Japanese companies that have no similar constraints. What you need is a local partner that understands and will keep you totally in the dark about what is going on, and not expect you to contribute.

And I think most of the time they'll opt to not put themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Not my company. At least, not when they were represented by me. We played it straight.