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vctrnktoday at 2:49 PM3 repliesview on HN

In the phrase "you _____ follow the law",

- Most of Latin America is 'should/oughta' - North America is more like 'have to' - Europe is 'need to' - And majority of Asia is simply 'WILL'

(disclaimer: I'm from LatAm)


Replies

andaitoday at 3:19 PM

What's the difference between those last three?

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alephnerdtoday at 3:55 PM

> And majority of Asia is simply 'WILL'

Nope. It's also "should/oughta" as well - even in developed Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan where bribery in development tenders is treated as the cost of doing business.

GAN Integrity [0] and the Yeun Yuen Ang's unbundled corruption matrix [1] is the best way to think about corruption and compliance risk.

To quote the 2016 remake of The Tick:

"Goat: I'm going to speed-dial the police.

Arthur: You pay organized crime weekly to protect your store and you say nothing.

Goat: At least the organized crime is organized."

LatAm isn't that different from much of Asia or Eastern Europe (or much of Southern Europe 15-20 years ago) - the only difference is the bulk of FDI that would have gone to LatAm shifted to Asia in the 1990s-2000s because of stronger linkages thanks to Japanese and Taiwanese financial partners. And European FDI in LatAm shifted to the CEE, Balkans, and Turkiye thanks to the EU expansion and the Eurozone crisis overimpacting LatAm oriented countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France.

One of my acquaintances at the HKS who's the goto researcher on anti-corruption (eg. Worked directly with national governments in Asia, the UNODC, and the OECD on corruption and compliance standards) has themselves argued that LatAm (especially Brazil) got overly penalized following Lava Jato due to the lack of intermediaries. For example, American FDI into Asia is usually done in conjunction with Singaporean, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese partners who take the legal and operational burden which acts as a liability firewall but American and European FDI into LatAm is direct, which increases liability and compliance risk.

[0] - https://www.ganintegrity.com/country-profiles/

[1] - https://oecd-development-matters.org/2020/06/25/unbundling-c...

Rover222today at 3:28 PM

Africa: what is law?

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