Practice Areas & Industries: Arnold & Porter LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Interaction with decision-makers at all levels of government is a simple fact of doing business. Even if a company does not have a Washington office or employ outside lobbyists, its employees often must communicate with public officials at the federal, state, and local levels on matters such as regulations affecting the company's business, sales of the company's products or services to government entities, or legislation affecting the company or its competitors. These communications, as well as other contacts with public officials such as campaign activities, are subject to strict and varying laws and rules at the federal, state, and local levels. As the requirements have become increasingly complex and expansive, the task of compliance has become more challenging.

Arnold & Porter LLP's political law attorneys have helped clients meet the challenge of complying with a broad range of federal, state, and local laws in this area, including lobbying registration and reporting laws, which require private parties to register and file disclosure reports when they engage in certain types of communications with government officials; election and campaign finance laws, which limit the amount of contributions companies and individuals may make to political candidates and provide further restrictions on political activity by corporations, contractors, and lobbyists; laws and rules restricting entertainment and other benefits that private parties provide to government officials, including criminal laws that impose fines and imprisonment for illegal gratuities, bribes, and mail and wire "honest services" fraud; government procurement laws and rules, which govern bidders' and contractors' interactions with government officials and also prohibit or limit gifts and offers of employment; tax laws and regulations governing political and lobbying activity by for-profit and nonprofit entities; and the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires registration and various disclosures relating to lobbying and other political activity in the United States on behalf of a foreign entity.

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