Canada Now Has Deferred Prosecution Agreements
A guest post today from Toronto-based Borden Ladner Gervais attorneys Milos Barutciski, Graeme Hamilton and Julia Webster.
On September 19, 2018, deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) became available to resolve corporate offences in Canada under the Criminal Code and the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.
Remediation Agreements will be available to resolve criminal charges against corporations, partnerships and other forms of business organizations without registering a criminal conviction. Remediation Agreements will be negotiated by the prosecution and the accused and are subject to judicial approval. They will typically be accompanied by the payment of penalties, restitution, implementation of compliance measures, and other terms and conditions as negotiated by the parties, including the potential appointment of corporate monitorships.
Friday Roundup
A home run, quotable, monitors, up north, scrutiny alerts and updates, irksome, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Home Run
The latest issue of the always informative FCPA Update from Debevoise & Plimpton (released by the way on the opening day of the Major League Baseball season) hits a home run.
The lead article by Paul Berger (former Associate Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division) concerns the recent Elbit Imaging enforcement action (see here for the prior post) and states in pertinent part:
News Flash – Canadian Businesses Prefer Less Harsh Criminal Sanctions And Other Observations Relevant To Canada’s Movement Towards DPAs
These pages have closely followed Canada’s movement towards DPAs. (See here and here for prior posts including my submission to the Canadian government encouraging it to say “no” to DPAs).
As predicted in my 2010 article “The Facade of FCPA Enforcement” other nations would soon start to salivate over alternative resolution vehicles because they are easy, efficient and yield a greater quantity of enforcement actions allowing them to “catch up” to the U.S. in terms of “enforcing” bribery laws. This is precisely what happened in the U.K. and France and is happening in Australia and Canada.
Recently, the Canadian government released this document titled “Expanding Canada’s Toolkit to Address Corporate Wrongdoing: What We Heard.” As discussed below the document is laughable in certain respects and otherwise fails to capture several salient points relevant to Canada’s movement towards DPAs.
Friday Roundup
Scrutiny alerts and updates, ripple, didn’t fit the narrative, too far into the weeds, the emerging global facade of enforcement and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Scrutiny Alerts and Updates
Amway
Multilevel marketing companies Avon and Nu Skin Enterprises previously resolved FCPA enforcement actions concerning conduct in China. (See here, here, here, here and here for prior posts). Multilevel marketing companies USANA and Herbalife are currently under FCPA scrutiny for its business practices in China.
Friday Roundup
Guilty plea, Petrobras civil settlement, Alstom is done reporting, scrutiny alert, SEC FCPA enforcement, from the docket, checking in up north, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Guilty Plea
As highlighted in this prior post, in January 2017 the DOJ announced an FCPA and related enforcement action against four individuals for their roles in a scheme to pay $2.5 million in bribes to facilitate the $800 million sale of a commercial building in Vietnam (the so-called Landmark 72) to a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.
Today, the DOJ announced: “Joo Hyun Bahn, aka Dennis Bahn, 39, of Tenafly, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and one count of violating the FCPA. U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York accepted the guilty plea. Sentencing is scheduled for June 29 …”.