U.S. Undercover Tactics Go on Trial in Foreign Bribery Case

The Justice Department's aggressive use of undercover tactics in foreign bribery cases will be tested this month with the criminal prosecution of Joseph Sigelman, an outsourcing wunderkind accused of paying off a Colombian oil industry official. Lawyers made opening arguments on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors allege that Sigelman, who in the early 2000s won fame and fortune with a back-office logistics business in India, later tried to get a Colombian oil services startup aloft by bribing an official with Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company. Charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the main U.S. federal law against overseas bribery, Sigelman denies that he saw the $330,500 payment as a bribe, or even that he understood that the recipient worked directly for Ecopetrol.