The FCPA Files: Young & Rubicam (1989)

If you grew up anywhere on the eastern seaboard in the early 1980s, chances are you remember the television jingle, set to the tune of Old Stewball Was a Racehorse: “Come back to Jamaica / What’s old is what’s new / We want you to join us / We made it for you” — accompanied by a montage of contented and welcoming locals inviting you to revisit the pleasures of snorkeling off a catamaran, savoring the taste of Blue Mountain coffee, or indulging in a mid-day banana daiquiri.

Jamaica certainly needed the visitors. Tourism had been a mainstay of its economy since the Jamaica Tourist Board was established in 1955, seven years before independence. But economic slowdowns in the 1970s had taken a toll, and matters weren’t helped by ongoing election-related violence. (The 1980 vote alone saw more than 840 politically motivated killings.) Hoping for the sector’s vigorous recovery, the new Labour Party government elevated tourism to the ministry level, placing it under the leadership of former JTB chairman Eric Anthony Abrahams.

The new campaign — developed by New York advertising firm Young & Rubicam — was a success: total arrivals set a record of more than 670,000 in 1982, surpassed by another 110,000 the following year. By the time Abrahams left his ministerial post in 1984, the Jamaican economy was enjoying hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tourism revenue.

A bribery investigation would soon complicate Abrahams’ legacy. Looking into the use of shady tax shelters by noted American writer Robert Lowell “Robin” Moore, investigators came across a diary detailing the author’s role as go-between in connection with the JTB account. (Moore had extensive familiarity with the Caribbean tourism industry, gleaned in part from his involvement with the Sheraton hotel chain, which his father had founded.) The resulting indictment alleged that an associate of Moore’s had conspired to funnel kickback money from Young & Rubicam to the tourism minister; Abrahams himself was included in counts for racketeering and forfeiture.

The firm settled the matter for $500,000, pleading guilty to having had “reason to know” of a bribery scheme (a standard of liability repealed in 1988). For his part, Abrahams denied involvement in any such scheme, going so far as to file defamation claims against Moore and a pair of Jamaican newspapers that printed the allegations — eventually winning a six-figure judgment against one of the papers under Jamaica’s then-ultra permissive libel laws.

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This post is part of "The FCPA Files" series, examining key enforcement cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the lessons they offer for modern compliance.