Alere Inc. Archives - FCPA Professor

FCPA And Then Some As Alere Resolves SEC Enforcement Action

By Mike Koehler on September 29, 2017 in 2017 Enforcement Actions, Alere Inc., Colombia, Distributor Issues, FCPA Related Charges, Healthcare Products, Healthcare Providers As Foreign Officials, India, Merger Issues, SEC Enforcement Action

One instance of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scrutiny that has attracted significant investor interest over the past few years (because it occurred in the context of an M&A transaction) involved Alere Inc.

As highlighted in this previous post, the company disclosed in August 2015 that it received an SEC subpoena inquiring about its foreign business practices. Thereafter, Alere announced that it would be acquired by Abbott in a $5.8 billion transaction.

Friday Roundup

By Mike Koehler on May 6, 2016 in Alere Inc., FCPA Inc., FMC Technologies, Fresenius Medical Care, Grifols S.A., KBR, Key Energy Services, Och-Ziff Capital Management, Quad Graphics, Unaoil

A plethora of scrutiny alerts and updates and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday Roundup.

Scrutiny Alerts and Updates

Unaoil Related

The disclosures keep coming from companies mentioned in the recent Unaoil media reports (see here for the prior post).

FMC Technologies, an oil and gas services company, recently disclosed:

“On March 28, 2016 we received an inquiry from the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) related to the DOJ’s investigation of whether certain services Unaoil S.A.M. provided to its clients, including FMC Technologies, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We are cooperating with the DOJ’s inquiry and are conducting our own internal investigation.”

KBR, a company which resolved an FCPA enforcement action in 2009 concerning conduct in Nigeria , recently disclosed:

The Sun Rose, A Dog Barked, And A Company Disclosed FCPA Scrutiny

By Mike Koehler on March 21, 2016 in Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Alere Inc., Fairmont Santrol, Platform Speciality Products, Tabcorp

This is not the first post regarding this general topic (see here and here for prior posts), merely the most recent.

Has the general increase in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement over the past decade done anything to deter future FCPA violations? Why in this current era of purported increased FCPA compliance does there seem to be more, not less, FCPA inquiries? Does effective compliance reduce FCPA scrutiny or does effective compliance uncover more FCPA issues? If the latter, does that argue in favor of a compliance defense?

If every company hired FCPA counsel to do a thorough review of its world-wide operations – given the current enforcement theories – would 50% of companies find technical FCPA violations? 75%? 95%? If the answer is any one of those numbers is that evidence of how corrupt business has become or is that evidence of how unhinged FCPA enforcement theories have become?

While pondering the above questions, do recognize that a company disclosing or otherwise being the subject of FCPA scrutiny has become as common as the sun rising and a dog barking (hence the picture).

This post highlights recent disclosures and scrutiny from just the past week involving the following companies: Fairmont Santrol, Platform Speciality Products, Alere, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals and Tabcorp.

Top Menu

Navigation

Friday Roundup

The Sun Rose, A Dog Barked, And A Company Disclosed FCPA Scrutiny

Subscribe