Friday Roundup
Positive feedback, guilty plea, scrutiny alerts and updates, an instrumentality with mouse ears?, rant alert, quotable, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Positive Feedback
In running FCPA Professor for nearly seven years, I often feel like the captain of a ship in a wide, vast ocean. My metrics tell me people are reading, but feedback tends to be sparse. I take this as a good sign given that negative feedback is more likely to occur than positive feedback.
Thus, I appreciated much positive feedback in connection with the recent post “Denied by the DOJ.”
FCPA Flash – A Conversation With Anthony Mirenda
The FCPA Flash podcast provides in an audio format the same fresh, candid, and informed commentary about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related topics as readers have come to expect from the written posts on FCPA Professor.
This FCPA Flash episode is a conversation with Anthony Mirenda (a partner in the Boston office of Foley Hoag). Mirenda recently co-authored an article “Bridging the Cultural Gap in International Arbitrations Arising from FCPA Investigations” that caught my eye because it discusses a seldom explored corner of the general FCPA space.
Wal-Mart’s Recent Disclosures
Last week, Wal-Mart made several disclosures that touched upon its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scrutiny and compliance enhancements.
This post highlights FCPA and related information in Wal-Mart’s Annual Report, Proxy Statement, Global Ethics and Compliance Report, and Global Responsibility Report.
The Global Ethics and Compliance Report in particular will be of interest to compliance practitioners.
In short, regardless of what may (or may not) have happened at Wal-Mart approximately 5-10 years ago, it is clear that Wal-Mart has become an industry-leader in FCPA compliance best practices. Anyone who fails to acknowledge this is simply not credible.
Wells Fargo Head Of Anti-Bribery & Corruption Governance Pens Open Letter To DOJ Compliance Counsel With Suggestions On How The DOJ Can Do Better
Kudos to Jonathan Rusch (Senior V.P. and Head of Anti-Bribery & Corruption Governance at Wells Fargo) for doing something few in-house counsel would ever think of doing – penning an open letter to the DOJ for how it can do its job better.
Prior to his current position at Wells Fargo, Rusch was previously the Deputy Chief for Strategy and Policy at the DOJ Fraud Section for over 25 years.
In this “Memorandum to the Compliance Counsel, United States Department of Justice” published by the Harvard Business Law Review Online, Rusch begins his 18 page memo to DOJ Compliance Counsel Hui Chen in pertinent part as follows.
Issues To Consider From The Novartis Enforcement Action
This prior post went in-depth into the recent $25 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Novartis.
This post continues the analysis by highlighting various issues to consider.
Origin and Timeline
Below is how Novartis has described the origin of its FCPA scrutiny in public filings.
“After reports of Chinese government investigations of competitors for alleged improper use of certain China-based travel agencies to reward healthcare providers, Novartis commenced an internal investigation in 2013 concerning its local affiliates’ relationships with China-based travel agencies (and other vendors). Novartis is communicating with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about this internal investigation.”
Chinese Travel Companies
As highlighted in this recent guest post, several FCPA enforcement actions have been based on alleged improper travel involving alleged Chinese officials. Often times, this travel is facilitated through Chinese travel agencies – a well-known corruption risk.