Apparently not, scrutiny updates, silly offensive use, and not credible. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Apparently Not
This May 2017 post asked whether Sinovac might become the first Chinese issuer to resolve an FCPA enforcement action after the SEC began an inquiry regarding certain bribery and corruption issues in China.
Apparently not as the company recently announced:
How much do you know about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Let’s find out.
To commemorate the FCPA’s 40th year, FCPA Professor is presenting the FCPA Challenge.
Each Thursday during 2018, a question will be posed and the answer will be below the fold.
This week’s question is: this 2009 enforcement action concerned alleged improper payments to Panamanian officials to secure contracts to maintain lighthouses and buoys along Panama’s waterways?
This July 2017 post highlighted the criminal conviction of Heon-Cheol Chi (Chi) of South Korea -“the Director of South Korea’s Earthquake Research Center at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) for “laundering bribes that he received from two seismological companies based in California and England through the U.S. banking system.”
The prior post noted that attention now turns to Kinemetrics (the California company) and Guralp Systems Ltd. (the U.K. company).
Recently, the DOJ quitely released this substantively vague so-called declination letter concerning Guralp Systems. However, as highlighted below it is difficult to analyze just what viable criminal charges against Guralp Systems that the DOJ actually “declined” to prosecute.
Sole source procurement generally refers to a contract executed without a competitive bidding process. Most governments, including the U.S., use sole source procurement in connection with certain goods and services.
There is nothing inherently wrong with sole source procurement from a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act perspective. However, the bribery risk is that a government contracting official with discretion over the procurement process may request money or something of value to convert what would otherwise be a competitive bidding process into a sole source procurement. The end result may be that the company providing or offering money or something of value to the foreign official will get the contract – which is an FCPA issue.
As highlighted below certain FCPA enforcement actions have involved – in some way – sole source procurement.
In the aftermath of the 2012 Garth Peterson enforcement action (a former managing director for Morgan Stanley’s real estate business in China) and the DOJ’s so-called “declination” of Morgan Stanley, the company seemed to become the darling of the compliance community.
Never mind that the “declination” appeared to be little more than a conveniently timed public relations campaign by the DOJ (see here). Moreover, according to Peterson, the DOJ was lying about Morgan Stanely’s supposed “wonderful compliance program.” (See here).
As first reported here by Bloomberg, an FCPA-related administrative Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation claim filed by Christopher Garvey (a former in-house lawyer at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong) recently survived the company’s motion to dismiss.
This 2014 post highlighted Citigroup’s FCPA scrutiny after it disclosed various business practices in its Mexican Banamex unit. The prior post highlighted how the FCPA’s generic books and records and internal controls provisions can be implicated in the absence of any FCPA anti-bribery issues.
Fast forward to last week as the SEC announced two enforcement actions (see here and here) against Citigroup finding violations of, among other things, the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions.
FCPA Professor has been described as “the Wall Street Journal concerning all things FCPA-related,” and “the most authoritative source for those seeking to understand and apply the FCPA.”
Set forth below are the topics discussed this week on FCPA Professor.
As highlighted in this post, recent survey results seriously call into question whether the FCPA has been successful in achieving its objectives.
In yesterday’s 2Q FY2019 earnings call presentation WalMart disclosed $8 million in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and compliance related expenses ($5 million for ongoing investigations and inquiries and $3 million for global compliance program and organizational enhancements).
Doing the math, Wal-Mart’s 2Q FY2019 FCPA and compliance-related costs is approximately $130,000 per working day.
Over the past approximate 6 years, I have tracked Wal-Mart’s quarterly disclosed pre-enforcement action professional fees and expenses. While some pundits ridiculed me for doing so, it quickly caught on as the popular thing to do.
How much do you know about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Let’s find out.
To commemorate the FCPA’s 40th year, FCPA Professor is presenting the FCPA Challenge.
Each Thursday during 2018, a question will be posed and the answer will be below the fold.
This week’s question is: in 2011 a federal trial court judge vacated the trial court convictions and dismissed the indictment against this company and individuals after finding numerous instances of prosecutorial misconduct – “so many in fact, and so varied, and occurring over so lengthy a period … that they add up to an unusual and extreme picture of a prosecution gone badly awry.”
Summer.
A time for reflection, a time to think, a time to read.
If you have some downtime, put it to good use.
This post provides an overview of FCPA writings that can help you elevate your Foreign Corrupt Practices Act knowledge, sophistication, and practical skills.
Earlier this week professionals from all over the world and from leading firms and companies came to Seattle to elevate their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act knowledge and practical skills at the FCPA Institute – Seattle hosted by KPMG.
The next stop for the FCPA Institute is Philadelphia on October 18-19, 2018 in an event hosted by Pepper Hamilton.
Since 2014, the FCPA Institute has elevated the FCPA knowledge and practical skills of approximately 200 diverse professionals through active learning and this link introduces you to the FCPA Institute; how the FCPA Institute is different than other FCPA conferences; the substantive knowledge and practical skills participants will gain by attending the FCPA Institute; and what prior FCPA Institute “graduates” have said about their experience.
The FCPA Flash podcast provides in an audio format the same fresh, candid, and informed commentary about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related topics as readers have come to expect from written posts on FCPA Professor.
This FCPA Flash episode is a conversation with Bruce Searby (Searby LLP). Prior to forming this firm, Searby was an enforcement attorney in the DOJ’s FCPA Unit. During the podcast, Searby expands upon points made in his recent article titled “FCPA Liability for Hiring Practices Gain New Credence” including how this enforcement theory is “expansive,” how “no FCPA hiring case has been tested in court,” how in certain of the enforcement actions there are hints that the “government may struggle to establish all the elements required for an anti-bribery violation of the FCPA,” and how “building cases against individuals may be particularly challenging.”