Assessing The SEC’s Individual Accountability Rhetoric

In announcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Asante Berko earlier this week, the Chief of the SEC’s FCPA Unit stated: “individual accountability remains a key component to our FCPA enforcement efforts.” (See here for the prior post).

Such statements by FCPA enforcement officials are commonplace.

But what do the facts show? As highlighted below, since January 1, 2018 the SEC has brought 28 corporate FCPA enforcement actions against issuer companies. As the co-head of the SEC’s Enforcement Division rightly stated: “Of course, companies cannot engage in bribery without the actions of culpable individuals.” However, approximately 90% of these issuer enforcement actions have lacked, at least at present, any related SEC enforcement action against an individual. In other words, there has been no individual accountability for these alleged FCPA violations.

Set forth below is a list of SEC issuer enforcement actions since January 1, 2018 and whether the enforcement action resulted in any related individual charges by the SEC.