The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world

(Paperback)

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In 2014, France lost part of the control of its nuclear power plants to the United States. Frederic Pierucci, former senior executive of one of Alstom's power company subsidiaries, found himself at the heart of this state scandal. His story goes to the very core of how he plotted the key features of the secret economic war that the United States is waging in Europe. And after being silenced for a long time, he has decided, with the help of journalist Matthieu Aron, to reveal all.

In April 2013, Frederic Pierucci was arrested in New York by the FBI and accused of bribery. The US authorities imprisoned him for more than two years - including fourteen months in a notorious maximum-security prison. In doing so, they forced Alstom to pay the biggest financial penalty ever imposed by the United States. In the end, Alstom also gave up areas of control to General Electric, its biggest American competitor.

Frederic's story unpacks how the United States is using corporate law as an economic weapon against its own allies. One after the other, some of the world's largest companies are being actively destabilised to the benefit of the US, in acts of economic sabotage that seem to be the beginning of what's to come...

Reviews

A cautionary tale for globe-trotting executives at multinational companies - Bloomberg

A wake-up call for all managers working for international companies... A warning sign for all those multinational companies that risk getting on the radar of the American justice system - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

A legal thriller - Le Figaro

An extraordinary French industrial saga...a testimony that sends shivers down your spine - Le Journal du Dimanche

This is more a tale of war than a thriller. A 'covert economic war' waged by the United States to weaken U.S. companies' competition - La Croix

Author Bio

Former senior executive of Alstom in the Philippines, Frederic Pierucci's life was turned upside-down on April 4th, 2013 when he was arrested by the FBI under the Foreign Corruption Practice Act that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere for suspicion of corruption.

Matthieu Aron is a journalist and former associate director of the Nouvel Observateur and former managing editor at France Inter. He has followed Frederic Pierucci's story since the beginning.