Other items of note, add another to the list, a 6 day sentence, a notable name from the past and spot-on. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Other Items of Note
Yesterday’s post highlighted comments made by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez at the Dow Jones / Wall Street Journal Global Compliance Symposium. Other items of note from the event concern the Africa Sting case and the SEC’s neither admit nor deny settlement policy.
Africa Sting
The jury foreman in the second Africa Sting trial (see here for the prior post) stated that there were “enough small comments through the course of [jury] deliberations [that lead the person] to believe that [the jury’s] underlying view was that the defendants had acted in good faith and the FBI/DOJ in bad faith.”
The Africa Sting cases ended (see here for the prior post) by Judge Richard Leon stating, in pertinent part, as follows.
“This appears to be the end of a long and sad chapter in the annals of white collar criminal enforcement.”
“I expressed on a number of occasions my concerns regarding the way this case had been investigated and was conducted especially vis-a-vis the handling of Mr. Bistrong.”
“I for one hope this very long, and I’m sure very expensive, ordeal will be a true learning experience for both the Department and the FBI as they regroup to investigate and prosecute FCPA cases against individuals in the future.”
Yet listening to the interview of Ronald Hosko (assistant director of the criminal investigative division of the FBI) at the Dow Jones event, one was left with the conclusion that nothing appeared to be learned. Indeed, Hosko seemed to blame the government’s loss on Judge Leon’s evidentiary rulings and the defendants’ good lawyers. Hosko was interviewed by Dow Jones reporter Christopher Matthews (who closely followed the Africa Sting cases) and Matthews specifically asked Hosko whether anything will change as a result of the case. Hosko said “we will do it again – see you out there.”
Neither Admit Nor Deny
Former SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami had the opportunity at the Dow Jones event to articulate a sound rationale and purpose for the SEC’s long-standing neither admit nor deny settlement policy. (See numerous prior posts here, here, here, and here – focusing mostly on Judge Jed Rakoff’s (S.D.N.Y.) disdain of the policy. ).
Instead, Khuzami’s remarks were unconvincing.
Khuzami acknowledged that direct accountability occurs when someone is forced to admit something “on the record,” but he stated that this incremental benefit (compared to a defendant in an SEC enforcement action resolving the case by way of penalties and other relief via a neither admit nor deny settlement) presents challenges that are not worth the additional costs that come from a system that demanded such accountability.
Khuzami noted that without the settlement policy, the “SEC would get few settlements, [settlements] would happen much later in the process, [and that enforcement actions] would tie up a great deal of resources, resources that could be used for the next fraud or victim.” Against “all those benefits,” and the defendant writing a check and reforming itself, Khuzami did not believe that “it is worth the marginal increase in accountability” to require an explicit admission.
The problem with Khuzami’s defense is the failure to recognize that such a policy insulates SEC enforcement positions from judicial scrutiny. Indeed, the SEC explicitly acknowledged in the Bank of America enforcement action (where Judge Rakoff first expressed concerns regarding the settlement policy) that SEC settlements “do not necessarily reflect the triumph of one party’s position over the other.”
The SEC is a law enforcement agency and enforcing a law and accusing people (legal or natural) of wrongdoing should not be easy and efficiency should not be the goal. Justice, transparency, and accountability ought to be the goals and the SEC’s neither admit nor deny settlement policy frustrates these goals.
Add Another
Add another to the list of companies subject to FCPA scrutiny. SBM Offshore (a Netherlands-based company with ADRs traded in the U.S. and a company that provides floating production solutions to the offshore energy industry) recently issued this press release titled “Update on Internal Investigation.” It stated, in pertinent part, as follows.
“This investigation commenced in 2012 at the request of SBM Offshore into alleged payments involving sales intermediaries in certain African countries in the period 2007 through 2011, in order to determine whether these alleged payments violated anti-corruption laws. These alleged payments came to the attention of the management board after a review of SBM Offshore’s compliance procedures in late 2011. In the course of the investigation allegations were made of improper payments in countries outside Africa but to date no conclusive proof of such allegations has been established. The investigation is being carried out by outside legal counsel and forensic accountants, with the support of the chief Governance and Compliance officer and under the oversight of the audit committee. The investigation is expected to be completed in 2013.
As the investigation is not yet concluded, SBM Offshore cannot make any definitive statements regarding the findings of the investigation. The initial feedback received to date is that there are indications that substantial payments were made, mostly through intermediaries, which appear to have been intended for government officials. Also, SBM Offshore’s new Management Board, which was appointed in the course of 2012, has found it necessary and appropriate to increase awareness of proper compliance throughout the Group up to the highest management levels.
The Company voluntarily disclosed the investigation to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie) and the United States Department of Justice in 2012. The Company will update the authorities on this initial feedback from the investigation shortly. At this stage it is not possible to state anything on the outcome of the investigations, including financial or otherwise.
6-Day Sentence
Bloomberg’s David Glovin has extensively followed the Kozeny, Bourke, etc. enforcement actions.
He reports here that Clayton Lewis (a former executive at hedge fund Omega Advisors, Inc.) was sentenced to time served by U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald. As noted in Glovin’s article, Lewis pleaded guilty in 2004 to charges that he conspired with Viktor Kozeny to pay bribes as part of a 1998 scheme to buy the state oil company in Azerbaijan. Soon after his 2003 arrest, Lewis agreed to cooperate with the DOJ and he previously served six days in jail.
A Notable Name From The Past
Roderick Hills (Chairman of the SEC in the mid-1970’s) was a notable voice in the story of the FCPA. (See here for my article of the same name). It is ironic (given the SEC’s current FCPA unit) that the Commission never wanted any role whatsoever in enforcing the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions. Indeed, Chairman Hill stated as follows during various Congressional hearings.
“The Commission does not oppose direct prohibitions against these payments, but we have previously stated that, as a matter of principle, we would prefer not to be involved even in the civil enforcement of such prohibitions. As a matter of long experience, it is our collective judgment that disclosure is a sufficient deterrent to the improper activities with which we are concerned.”
“[A]s a matter of longstanding tradition and practice, the [SEC] has been a disclosure agency. Causing questionable conduct to be revealed to the public has a deterrent effect. Consistent with our past tradition, we would rather not get into the business, however, we think get involved in prohibiting particular payments. It is a different thing entirely to try to prohibit something, to try to make a decision as to whether it is legal or illegal, or proper or improper. Under present law, if it is material, we cause its disclosure, and we need not get into the finer points of whether it is or is not legal.”
“[The SEC] would prefer not to be involved in civil enforcement of such prohibitions since they embody separate and distinct policies from those underlying the federal securities laws. The securities laws are designed primarily to insure disclosure to investors of all of the relevant facts concerning corporations which seek to raise their capital from the public at large. The [criminal payment provisions of proposed legislation], on the other hand, would impose substantive regulation on a particular aspect of corporate behavior.The Commission recognizes the congressional interest in enacting these prohibitions, but the enforcement of such provisions does not easily fit within the Commission’s mandate.”
Against this backdrop, I enjoyed reading recent comments by Hills on the FCPAmericas Blog (see here). Hills recently stated as follows.
“My view at the time was that the problem of bribery that we had uncovered had been dealt with and I did not support the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. I was concerned then that broad criminalization of “questionable payments” to foreign officials would adversely affect the incentives for transparency that we had created. Nonetheless, the FCPA was passed and it has been properly amended to reduce the possibility that undue criminal actions will be brought. It is important to remember that it was the ability of the SEC to cause disclosure that brought the scope of worldwide corporate bribery to light. What began in the 1970’s with the SEC enforcement efforts is now a worldwide crusade against the use of bribes to secure business. Today I accept that the FCPA has had, on balance, a positive effect on the reduction of bribery and that similar laws in other countries can have a similar effect. However, criminalization alone is not a useful policy. By itself it is an incentive to conceal. Without effective independent auditing, fair enforcement of FCPA type legislation is unlikely. Also, I believe that in the United States and elsewhere, prosecutorial discretion is essential if we are serious about reducing the corruption. Payments that are made in response to extortion demands or payments that are made by lower level corporate officials contrary to the policies of their employer should surely be treated differently than money crassly offered to buy corrupt official action. In short, as other countries are following the United States’ lead they need to understand that the criminalization of corporate bribery is not enough. If a country does not have effective means of causing broad transparency with effective auditing and independent oversight, FCPA type laws make it too easy to use improper payments as a political weapon.”
Spot-On
In a recent Q&A on Law360, Haywood Gilliam Jr. (Covington & Burling), stated as follows.
“Q: What aspects of your practice area are in need of reform and why?
A: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement stands out as an area in need of further reform. Over the past several years, FCPA enforcement has been characterized by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission advancing aggressive enforcement theories, but there have been limited opportunities for courts to scrutinize those theories. Most FCPA enforcement cases end in negotiated resolutions such as deferred prosecution or nonprosecution agreements. In that context, regulators often insist that the settling company or individual accept the government’s expansive theories as a condition of resolving the case. For example, the DOJ has extracted penalties from non-U.S. based, non-U.S. traded companies not covered under the four corners of the statute by asserting broad theories such as aiding and abetting or conspiracy — even when the foreign entity has not taken any action in the U.S. As a practical matter, that could be a hard case to prove at trial — but the government almost never has to. The result of this trend has been to enshrine the government’s aggressive enforcement positions as quasi-precedent: The law means what the DOJ and SEC say it means, and defendants (especially publicly traded companies) seldom have a realistic opportunity to push back in court, given the financial and practical costs of fighting a contested enforcement action. Relatively recently, district courts have begun to weigh in on these theories, which is a positive development, but there still is a dearth of FCPA case law as compared to other areas of criminal law. This absence of settled law makes it challenging for companies to decide how to handle thorny FCPA compliance issues. For example, companies routinely face a difficult choice in deciding whether to self-report potential violations to the government, as opposed to thoroughly investigating and remediating the issues internally. While regulators insist that they will give “meaningful credit” to companies that self-report, the tangible benefits of doing so are far from clear. The recent FCPA resource guide issued by the DOJ and SEC says that the agencies place a “high premium” on self-reporting, but does not give concrete guidance as to how the government weighs self-reporting in deciding whether to charge a case, as opposed to offering a deferred prosecution or nonprosecution agreement, or declining the case outright. While the resource guide is a start, companies and their counsel would benefit from more specific guidance when they are weighing the potential, but uncertain, benefits of disclosure against the cost and distraction that can result from voluntarily handing the government a case that otherwise might not have come to its attention.”
Gilliam’s spot-on comments would make for good conversation with his firm’s new Vice-Chair, former Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.
In a recent Q&A on Law360, Mary Spearing (Baker Botts) stated as follows.
“Q: What aspects of your practice area are in need of reform and why?
A: It would be good for the practice if there was more litigation surrounding the scope and breadth of the statutes as applied and the government were put to the test. Currently, so much is being defined in settlements reached with the government. More frequent trials would render more judicial oversight of the government’s readings of the scope of the statutes’ reach.”
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A good weekend to all.
