Missing evidence, $10, and scrutiny alert.
It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Missing Evidence?
In 2017 (in connection with an undercover string) the DOJ unsealed criminal charges against Joseph Baptiste (a retired U.S. Army Colonel, practicing dentist, and founder / president of a Maryland-based Haitian focused non-profit) for alleged Haitian bribery. In 2018 the DOJ added criminal charges against Roger Boncy in connection with the same core conduct. (See here).
A guest post from David Corker (a Partner at Corker Binning Corker in London).
The cornerstone of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (‘DPA’) regime in our jurisdiction is the centrality of the court. At the start of both his preliminary and final judgments delivered in the first DPA in 2015, Leveson P intended that his affirmation of this principle would become, as indeed it has, axiomatic. Almost every subsequent judgment endorsing a DPA has recited his words about the indispensable judicial role. Opening her 32-page judgment concerning the Airbus DPA in 2020[1], for example, Sharp P (Sir Brian’s successor as head of the Queen’s Bench Division) reproduced (paras 7 and 8) the relevant passages in full.
For this article this extract provides sufficient colour:
If a government enforcement agency makes an allegation in a bribery enforcement action and a risk averse corporation agrees to resolve the enforcement action in the absence of any meaningful judicial scrutiny, does that mean the allegations are true?
Not necessarily.
As highlighted in this prior post, a portion of the U.K. enforcement action against Airbus concerned a sports sponsorship in Malaysia. As alleged by the Serious Fraud Office:
Previous posts here and here looked at the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Airbus.
This previous post looked at the U.K. Bribery Act enforcement action against Airbus.
This post completes the enforcement trilogy, bylooking at the French enforcement action against Airbus.
Like the prior U.S. and U.K. bribery enforcement action, the French enforcement action against Airbus (see here for the Judicial Public Interest Agreement) focused on the use of business partners in connection with sales or attempted sales in various countries.
In late January, law enforcement agencies in France, the United Kingdom and the U.S. announced a major bribery enforcement action against Airbus. (See here, here and here for prior posts). The conduct at issue generally focused on use of third parties by Airbus to corruptly obtain business in numerous countries around the world.
In light of the recent Airbus enforcement actions, today’s post republishes this December 11, 2009 FCPA Professor post which highlighted how U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan) (whose jurisdiction had a large Boeing presence) alleged that Airbus was engaged in bribery around the world.
