You have to be careful with them (and I am, some companies, regardless of what FCPA allows, ban the use of them, so do some countries, but in most 2d/3rd world countries, the USG has acknowledged the reality of the system, just not for outright bribes... unless of course it is the USG doing it iteslf!), but facilitating payments can be made to officials for things that are considered within their normal/routine business in order to "smooth" a service they provide. It's not the same as a bribe, but you need to be smart and I always document them. This obviously doesn't involve somehow providing funds to someone to gain a contract or something special, it has to be within their routine duties.
For instance... you need to get import/customs documents approved. You have to submit your supporting documentation to the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Finance to get signatures and stamps, then submit everything to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for approval. In most schitty places, simply submitting your paperwork to MOI and MOF will result in it sitting in a stack of a million similar requests. If you're good, you have a "fixer" that runs all your paperwork around and he will pay a facilitating payment to the guys at MOF and MOI to get your paperwork moved to the top of the stack. I then get a receipt from my fixer and document that cost/payment. I do NOT do this for the final approval at MOFA because this is for approval, not merely checking the documentation for completeness/correctness and signing/stamping like at MOF and MOI. To pay a facilitating payment to the MOFA guy I would see as straying into "bribe" land for approval, even if all my paperwork is legit and I'm not really bribing him for approval, just also want it done quickly.
Now, here's another "for instance" that is VERY similar to what I just described (I would say NO different in fact), and there are recent posts about this subject, and it's with the USG:
- You need a new US passport.
- You can submit it "normally" direct to the USG (no third party help/fixer agency) and wait forever.
- You can submit it "expedited" direct to the USG (no third party help/fixer agency) and get it almost immediately.
See what I mean? On the one hand, the USG can call my example "bribery" or a "facilitating payment" (and subject to HIGH scrutiny), and on the other hand, the USG calls an "expedition" charge 100000% legal, perfectly legit.