MEXICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Gilberto Miguel Valle Zulbarán, Alejandro Catalá Guerrero and Erick Gustavo Soto Ceballos, Basham, Ringe y Correa
of Applicable Legislation . In this kind of bribery, the specific features are: • the bribe is given with the purpose of obtain - ing or retaining an advantage during interna - tional business transactions; and • unlike the domestic bribery previously explained, the bribe is also considered to be bribery crime when the foreign public official manages or processes the resolution of an issue not related with the duties inherent in their job, charge, or commission. The Federal Criminal Code defines as “for - eign public official” any individual who has the employment, charge, or commission in a foreign country in: • an executive, judicial or legislative branch; • autonomous constitutional bodies of any government level; • state-owned companies; or • public international agencies or organisations. Bribery Between Private Parties Even though Mexico is part of the UN Conven - tion against Corruption, bribery in the private sector has not been established as a criminal offence. 2.2 Influence-Peddling Under Article 221 of the FCC the following activi - ties are specifically considered as influence- peddling crimes. Influence-Peddling by Public Officials • A public official who promotes or manages, directly or through third parties, the illicit processing or resolution of public businesses unconnected to the duties inherent in their job, charge, or commission.
• A public official who requests or encourages, directly or through third parties, any resolution or the execution of an act that corresponds to a public official’s job, charge, or commission, for their own economic benefit, a relative’s economic benefit, or the economic benefit of a third party with whom they are linked by friendship or business. Influence-Peddling by Private Individuals • A person who promotes the illicit conduct of the public official for managing or processing the resolution of public businesses uncon - nected to the duties inherent in the public official’s job, charge, or commission. • A person who, without having authorisation for intervening in public businesses, affirms having influence before the public officials in charge of the decisions on such public busi - nesses and intervenes before them to pro - mote an illicit resolution in exchange for their own or for a third party’s benefit. The influence-peddling established as criminal offence in the FCC does not cover foreign public officials but is only focused on domestic public officials. 2.3 Financial Record-Keeping The Federal Fiscal Code establishes as federal criminal offences the following activities con - nected with financial record-keeping: • registering the accounting, fiscal and corpo - rate transactions in two or more accounting books or systems with different content; • hiding, altering, or destroying, totally or partially, the accounting books, records, or systems as well as the supporting documen - tation that are obliged to be kept pursuant to tax law; and
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