Rice to Haiti: Business as Usual

• Author: Cecil C. Kuhne III
• Pages: 91-95

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Rice to Haiti:

Business as Usual

United States v. Kay

513 F.3d 432 (5th Cir. 2007)

e American Rice Company, a publicly held corporation based in

Houston, Texas, exports rice to various parts of the world, including

Haiti, which in the 1990s was undergoing deep politica l chaos and ram-

pant corruption. To raise much-needed revenue, Haiti levied substantial

duties and taxes on rice importers, and American Rice—through its

president, Douglas Murphy, and its vice president of Caribbean opera-

tions, David Kay—took various steps to reduce those costs.

e cost-saving eorts of Murphy and Kay were, shall we say, a little

“ambitious,” and they included:

• purchasing from government ocials licenses that permitted

“charities” to import food without duty,