Freeing The Wolves
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is on pause. Jordan Belfort fans never had it so good.
“Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.” - Gore Vidal
Cheers rang at all the wrong moments during a free advance screening of “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2013.
The Regal Battery Park theater behind the Goldman Sachs building at 200 West Street was packed with financiers. They applauded fervently at Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Jordan Belfort as he and his boiler-room bros abused drugs, banged hookers, talked shit and swindled clueless customers with worthless penny stocks.
Steven Perlberg of Business Insider wrote a memorable account at the time:
“The feds get Belfort to wear a wire to implicate others at his firm. Meeting with his No. 2, Belfort slides over a piece of paper: ‘Don't incriminate yourself. I am wearing a wire.’
“And the crowd goes wild. Don't rat! Stand by your firm!”
To top it off, the film was financed through a massive Goldman Sachs bribery scam that a petty crook like Belfort could never even dream of orchestrating.
Goldman Sachs executives went to Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates and bribed 12 government officials to score lucrative business, including sizable bond deals in 2012 and 2013.
They laundered their ill-gotten gains by financing films and purchasing trophies – including a $51 million Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, a $23 million diamond necklace, a slew of Hermès handbags and luxury real estate in Manhattan.
Said then-Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme:
“Over a period of five years, Goldman Sachs participated in a sweeping international corruption scheme, conspiring to avail itself of more than $1.6 billion in bribes to multiple high-level government officials across several countries so that the company could reap hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, all to the detriment of the people of Malaysia and the reputation of American financial institutions operating abroad.”
One Goldman executive was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2023. Another copped a plea deal for his cooperation. The firm, itself, struck a deferred prosecution agreement in 2020 with a $2.9 billion penalty. It was the biggest enforcement action ever taken under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
But that was the past.
On Monday, President Donald Trump put the FCPA on pause, calling the reform that President Jimmy Carter enacted a disaster.
“It means that if an American goes over to a foreign country and starts doing business over there, legally, legitimately or otherwise, it's almost a guaranteed investigation indictment, and nobody wants to do business with the Americans because of it.”
Apparently, America can no longer be expected to compete by transparently offering the best products and services. It has to operate like a Third World country by offering the biggest bribes.
Looks like it’s time to make another movie glorifying high-finance thuggery.
Increased corruption, weakened corporate accountability and diminished U.S. business credibility be damned. We have plenty of wolves to howl and cheer.
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