Senator Grassley Seeks Guidance As To DOJ’s Upcoming FCPA Guidance
As detailed in this prior post, on November 8th Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer announced before an FCPA audience that in 2012 the DOJ hopes to “release detailed new guidance on the [FCPA’s] criminal and civil enforcement provisions.”
As previously reported by Christopher Matthews on the Wall Street Journal’s Corruption Currents page, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) recently sent (see here) U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a number of questions for the record related to Holder’s recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee – see here. Included in the questions are several about the DOJ’s upcoming FCPA guidance. The FCPA portion of Senator Grassley’s questions are excerpted below.
“Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Guidance
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer recently announced in a public speech that the Department is preparing, “detailed new guidance on the [Foreign Corrupt Practice Act’s] criminal and civil enforcement provisions” to be released next year. At a hearing on the FCPA back in November 2010 [see here for more], many Senators expressed their concerns with the Department’s enforcement of the statute. Specifically, members raised concerns with the fact that the law includes broad language that is not well defined, and that a lack of clear guidance from the Department in the form of advisory opinions has created an air of uncertainty in how U.S. corporations do business abroad. I welcome this call for new guidance to help ensure that businesses that want to do the right thing, know what the right thing is in the eyes of the Justice Department.
(a) When will the guidance be published?
(b) What form will the guidance take and what steps will be taken to ensure that it is implemented nationally and uniformly? Will the guidance be incorporated into in the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual?
(c) Does the Department intend to solicit the views of interested outside parties as it prepares the guidance, particularly the regulated business community? If so, how?
(d) Who at the Department will be primarily responsible for drafting the guidance?
(e) What will be the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) role in formulating the guidance? Will the SEC be bound by the guidance? Will the Department enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the SEC regarding the guidance?
(f) AAG Breuer’s remarks indicate that the guidance address the FCPA’s “enforcement provisions.” Will the guidance offer only the Department’s interpretation of the Act’s enforcement provisions or will the guidance set forth the Department’s enforcement policies? i. Will the guidance include the Department’s interpretations of ambiguous statutory terms such as “foreign official” and “government instrumentality”? ii. Will the guidance clarify when a company may be held liable for the actions of an independent subsidiary? iii. Will the guidance clarify the extent to which one company may be held liable the pre-acquisition or pre-merger conduct of another? iv. Will the guidance include an enforcement safe harbor for gifts and hospitality of a de minimis value provided to foreign officials?
(g) Other Department guidelines, including the Corporate Charging Guidelines, indicate that they may not be relied up on by defendants and do not limit the Department’s litigation prerogatives. Will the same be true of the forthcoming FCPA guidance, or will defendants be able to rely upon this guidance in litigation?”
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In other FCPA-related Capital Hill news, Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) wants to know why Wichita based Hawker-Beechcraft lost out to Embraer in the U.S. Air Force Light Air Support competition. See here. As detailed in this prior post, Embraer recently disclosed an FCPA investigation. In this recent letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Pompeo voiced his concern and last week Pompeo reacted as follows to news that Hawker-Beechcraft lost out to Embraer. ““It is vitally important for the Pentagon to clarify this matter, especially in light of allegations that Hawker’s main competitor in the LAS competition, Embraer, is being investigated for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
DOJ Declines To Get Specific In Declination Responses
During the June 14th House FCPA hearing (see here for the prior post) Representative Sandy Adams (R-FL) asked Greg Andres (DOJ) about the DOJ’s FCPA declination decisions and requested that the DOJ provide more detail as to its declination decisions, including the DOJ’s reasons and rationale for why enforcement actions did not result. [A declination decision in the FCPA context is generally viewed to mean that the DOJ learns of conduct that likely violates the FCPA, typically through a corporate voluntary disclosure, but in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion the DOJ declines to prosecute or bring an enforcement action.]
Soon after the hearing, Representative Adams and Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) sent Andres a letter and requested as follows. “Please provide to us information on cases that been brought to the attention of DOJ, but your agency decided, for one reason or another, not to investigate or pursue prosecution within in the last year along with the rationale for those decisions.”
In this August 3rd letter, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch begins with references to the DOJ’s Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations. Welch then responds as follows. “Pursuant to these guidelines, the Department has declined to prosecute corporate entities in several cases based on particular facts and circumstances presented in those matters, and taking into account the available evidence. For example, during the previous two years, the Department of Justice declined matters in which some or all of the following circumstances existed: a corporation voluntarily and fully self-disclosed potential misconduct; corporate principles voluntarily engaged in interviews with the Department and provided truthful and complete information about their conduct; a parent corporation voluntarily and fully self-disclosed information to the Department regarding alleged conduct by subsidiaries;a parent company conducted extensive pre-acquisition due diligence of potentially liable subsidiaries, and engaged in significant remediation efforts in acquiring the relevant subsidiaries; a company provided information to the Department about the parent’s extensive compliance policies, procedures, and internal controls, which the parent had implemented at the relevant subsidiaries; a company agreed to a civil resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission, while also demonstrating that a declination was appropriate for additional reasons; a single employee, and no other employee, was involved in the provision of improper payments; and the improper payments involved minimal funds compared to the overall business revenues.”
Welch concluded the letter by stating that the DOJ “cannot comment more specifically about FCPA matters where prosecution was declined” to “protect the privacy rights and other interests of the uncharged and other potentially interested parties.” Given that many declination decisions are assumed to be made after corporate voluntary disclosures, it is difficult to understand what privacy rights would be implicated by more specific answers.
I highlight above four of the circumstances DOJ identified because they undermine the DOJ’s staunch opposition to a potential FCPA compliance defense – a defense Andres (testifying on behalf of the DOJ at the June hearing) called “novel” and “risky.”
How is an FCPA compliance defense “novel” and “risky” when it would include factors the DOJ already considers in declining to bring FCPA enforcement actions? Would it not serve the public interest for such factors to be removed from the shadowy world of opaque DOJ decision making and codified in an open and transparent manner in an FCPA compliance defense?
Many have called for more transparency in DOJ declination decisions. In this guest post, Homer Moyer, a dean of the FCPA bar, called for “internal DOJ guidance that voluntarily disclosed matters must normally be resolved by the Department within 90 days after completion of an internal investigation; that agencies should make public their calculations of credit for voluntary disclosure and coordination; and that the Department will publish sanitized summaries of its declinations.” In this previous post, I proposed that the DOJ should publish its declination decisions in a manner similar to its FCPA Opinion Procedure releases. In a 2010 Q&A with Corporate Counsel Billy Jacobson (a former high-ranking DOJ FCPA official) stated: “The Justice Department could publicize cases anonymously that it has not brought because of the company’s actions.” Even William Stuckwisch (current DOJ-FCPA) wondered aloud in this video (at the six minute mark) whether DOJ declination decisions should be made public.
Given the opportunity to demonstrate to Congress, the business community, the FCPA bar, and others that it runs a consistent, principles-based, transparent FCPA enforcement program, the DOJ in its responses once again “circled the wagons.”
For additional analysis of DOJ declination decisions, see this prior post.
SEC Chairman Schapiro’s FCPA Responses
As noted in this prior post, on June 30th, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) sent SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro a letter requesting answers to a number of FCPA related questions. In this September 23rd letter, SEC Chairman Schapiro responds.
Chairman Schapiro begins as follows. “Contuined strong enforcement of the FCPA sends the message that American companies operating abroad will not pay bribes as a ‘cost of doing business.’ The deterrence message of the Commission’s FCPA enforcement program incentivizes companies to self-assess and update their compliance and internal controls – all of which benefits companies’ operations overall and provides greater transparency to investors. While I certainly appreciate and share your concerns about the costs of FCPA compliance in certain circumstances, I believe that the risks to investors and costs to companies posed by outdated or weak FCPA compliance measures are equally significant.”
Compliance Defense?
As to a potential FCPA compliance defense, Chairman Schapiro began by stating a common enforcement agency response … we already consider compliance. She stated as follows. “The Commission, in deciding whether to approve the filing of an FCPA enforcement action against a public company, already considers as one mitigating factor whether the company’s compliance program was reasonably designed and operated in a manner to detect and prevent FCPA violations.” “Similarly,” Chairman Schapiro stated, “companies facing FCPA inquiries can obtain credit for cooperation under the Commission’s new Cooperative Initiative, in which cooperation is defined to include, among other factors, having reasonable internal controls and compliance measures.” Given the above, Chairman Schapiro states that “it seems unnecessary – and even counterproductive – to recognize a formal affirmative defense for having such a program, given that there are at least three significant costs associated with such a defense.”
Chairman Schapiro then identifies the following three issues.
“First, the reasonableness of a compliance program is best measured not by how it exists on paper, but by how it operates in practice. Consequently, the ease with which an employee was able to circumvent anti-corruption controls is some evidence – not sufficient evidence, but some evidence – that internal controls were insufficient. The Commission would not want to be foreclosed from bringing FCPA charges under those circumstances, since holding companies accountable for weak internal controls incentivizes companies to create a robust FCPA compliance environment.”
“Second, providing an affirmative defense for reasonably designed compliance programs could allow companies to retain ill-gotten gains. A company could engage in bribery or other corrupt behavior, obtain a benefit from such conduct (i.e. securing lucrative contracts), and yet not disgorge its ill-gotten gains. Enabling companies to retain proceeds generated from the payment of bribes would disincentivize those companies from adopting rigorous anti-corruption programs.”
“Third, sanctioning corrupt behavior sends a strong message of general deterrence to all similarly situated companies that there is a high financial and reputational cost to be paid if they bribe foreign officials. There is often no substitute for the deterrent impact of financial and reputational sanctions, which prevent improper behavior from becoming ingrained as just another ‘cost of doing business.’ That deterrence message likely would be diluted if such an affirmative defense was adopted.”
“Foreign Official”?
According to Chairman Schapiro, the FCPA “sufficiently defines the term foreign official.” She stated as follows. “Given the various forms of government found around the world, it would be impractical to articulate each of the myriad of ways that one could use to identify a foreign official in particular countries or cultures. In addition, Commission and Department of Justice enforcement actions also provide guidance on the meaning of ‘foreign official’ in various contexts. Finally, companies with a strong compliance culture have policies prohibiting all bribery in order to send a clear corporate message that such practices are not condoned.”
SEC Guidance?
“Both the Commission and the Department of Justice have numerous mechanisms for providing guidance on FCPA matters. Perhaps the most important guidance comes from the enforcement actions that are brought by the Commission and the Department of Justice. The Commission uses it pleadings and accompanying public news releases to highlight and reinforce the key elements of each case. Additionally, senior staff in the Division of Enforcement speak regularly at industry conferences and provide guidance on the FCPA program. “
For a prior post on “prosecutorial common law” – see here.
As relevant to Chairman Schapiro’s “guidance” response, readers may be interested in my “Facade of FCPA Enforcement” article (here) in which I discuss the frequency in which FCPA enforcement actions are resolved based on uninformative, bare-bones statements of facts or allegations or conclusory legal statements; the increasing trend of FCPA enforcement actions resolved based on untested and dubious legal theories, as well as enforcement theories seemingly in direct conflict with FCPA’s statutory provisions; and the opaque nature of FCPA enforcement and how similar enforcement actions, based on the government’s own allegations, are resolved with materially different charges and penalties.
In short, the notion that settled SEC civil complaints or administrative orders (or now SEC NPAs or DPAs or DOJ NPAs or DPAs for that matter) provide meaningful guidance or should serve as FCPA caselaw is absurd. In my Facade article, I detail cases in which the SEC admits that the terms of an SEC settlement “do not necessarily reflect the triumph of one party’s position over the other.” I also highlight statements from former SEC Commissioner and current Standford law professor Joseph Grundfest that, among other things, SEC complaints “typically omit mention of valid defenses and of countervailing facts or mitigating circumstances …”. In the words of Professor Grundfest, the “natural result” of settling an SEC enforcement action “is a one-sided record in which the Commission asserts its version of the facts and the law, and the settling defendants commit not to challenge that rendition.”
On the same general topic, albeit in the DOJ FCPA context, see this recent piece from Michael Volkov “The FCPA & Voluntary Disclosure An Engimatic Threat to Due Process” (“the Justice Department has started to cite as precedent its own decisions respecting the outer reaches of the law”).
Strict Parent Company Liability for Foreign Subsidiary Actions?
Chairman Schapiro’s response states in full as follows. “A U.S. parent company may be liable under the FCPA for bribes paid by its foreign subsidiary in certain circumstances, such as where the parent company had knowledge of the foreign subsidiary’s bribery or where the subsidiary acted as the parent’s agent. ‘Knowledge’ under the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions encompasses actual knowledge, conscious disregard of, or willful blindness to the subsidiary’s illicit activities. In addition, under agency law, an agent’s knowledge can be imputed to the principal (parent). Accordingly, in the absence of the requisite evidence, the Commission does not charge a U.S. parent company with a violation of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions in connection with the foreign subsidiary’s actions. In addition, the Commission may, based on its analysis of the particular facts and circumstances of some cases, charge the foreign subsidiary directly with violation of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions while separately charging the parent company with violations of the books and records and internal control provisions of the FCPA. This is because the public company parent typically is responsible for the accuracy of the books and records of its overall operations, including those of its controlled foreign subsidiaries. While the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions do not contain a ‘knowledge’ requirement, the Commission exercises its discretion and flexibility in charging these provisions.”
For previous posts on the issue of strict liability see here and here.
Double-Dip Penalties?
Chairman Schapiro stated as follows. “The Commission and Department of Justice do not obtain duplicative penalties in FCPA cases. Typically, the Commission will obtain monetary sanctions in the form of disgorgement (ill-gotten gains) while the Department of Justice obtains monetary sanctions in the form of penalties. In those rare cases where both the Commission and the Department of Justice obtain penalties, the total penalty assessed against the company is no greater than it would be if either the Commission or DOJ alone obtained the penalty.”
However, DOJ penalties are calculated by reference to the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines where an important factor in determining the ultimate penalty amount is value of the benefit received by the company from the conduct at issue.
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For your viewing pleasure here – an October 5th rountable program sponsored by the Heritage Foundation on corruption, economic growth, and freedom.
For the calendars of Indianapolis area readers see here. A luncheon address – “Compliance in a New Era of FCPA Enforcement” I am giving next Tuesday (Oct. 11th) to the World Trade Club of Indiana. The event, sponsored by Butler University College of Business, begins at 11:30 at the downtown law offices of Baker & Daniels.
A Discussion On The News Corp Scandal
Every now and then it is nice to have a light writing day. Today is such a day, but that does not mean today’s post is lacking in substance. I am pleased to send you here – an extensive discussion of the FCPA (and other) implications of the News Corporation scandal on Legal Talk Network and Lawyer2Lawyer. Joining me on the program, moderated by Bob Ambrogi, was Jane Kirtley, the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota (see here).
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In other News Corp. FCPA related news, Gateway News reported here that Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) joined the growing list on Capital Hill calling for DOJ and SEC FCPA investigations of News Corp. Readers may recall that Representative Perlmutter previously introduced a bill seeking to amend the FCPA to provide a limited private right of action. See here and here for the prior posts. According to Gateway News, Representative Perlmutter plans to soon re-introduce his private right of action bill.
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A good weekend to all.
News Corp And The FCPA
On July 7th the U.K. Guardian reported (here) that “up to five [U.K. police] officers were paid between them a total of at least £100,000 in cash from the News of the World.” The next day, Dominic Rushe and Jill Treanor of the U.K. Guardian made the link (see here) between these payments and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
What followed over the next 10 days was the most intense worldwide media coverage of the FCPA in its nearly 35 year history.
Last Wednesday, in a development seldom – if ever – seen in the FCPA context, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro (see here) requesting “that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigate whether News Corporation, a U.S.-based corporation, has violated United States law – specifically the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.” Separately, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) wrote Holder and Schapiro (see here). Senator Lautenberg stated as follows. “The limited information already reported in this case raises serious questions about the legality of the conduct of News Corporation and its subsidiaries under the FCPA. Further investigation may reveal that current reports only scratch the surface of the problem at News Corporation. Accordingly, I am requesting that DOJ and the SEC examine these circumstances and determine whether U.S. laws have been violated.”
Public interest groups (see here for one example) also began demanding an FCPA inquiry into the News of the World scandal.
Soon thereafter, it was reported that the FBI (an agency that investigates allegations of criminal violations of the FCPA under the supervision of the Fraud Section of the DOJ Criminal Division) opened an investigation of News Corp. Among others, Congressmen John Conyers “applaud[ed] Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that the Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into allegations that News Corp. may have violated both federal wiretapping statutes and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” (See here).
The News Corp. scandal is wide in scope potentially implicating several laws both here in the U.S. and the U.K. This post focuses on News Corp.’s potential FCPA exposure.
Can the FCPA apply to News Corp. even if the improper conduct took place outside of the U.S.?
Yes. News Corp. is a U.S. company and as such the FCPA has extraterritorial application meaning it can face FCPA liability even if the conduct at issue takes places entirely outside of the U.S. Indeed, in most FCPA enforcement actions the conduct at issue takes place outside of the U.S. Further, it is very common in FCPA enforcement actions for parent companies to be held legally responsible for the acts of subsidiary employees on the theory that such employees acted as “agents” of the parent company and that the parent company ultimately derived the financial benefit from the improper conduct at issue.
Indeed, even News Corp.’s FCPA policies and procedures (here) states as follows. “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a U.S. law that forbids bribery of foreign (meaning non-U.S.) government officials, whether elected or appointed, even if the bribe takes place outside the United States. Because News Corporation is a U.S. corporation, the FCPA may apply to all Company employees everywhere in the world, regardless of their nationality or where they reside or do business.”
Why do the London police payments implicate the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions?
As a general matter, the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions prohibit the payment of money or anything of value to a “foreign official” to “obtain or retain business.” London police officers are “foreign officials” under the FCPA. For instance, in this 2006 FCPA enforcement action the DOJ asserted that an Iraqi police officer was a “foreign official” under the FCPA.
As to “obtain or retain business,” for most of its history FCPA enforcement actions focused on payments to “foreign officials” to “obtain or retain business” with a foreign government. However, during the past decade, the DOJ has brought numerous FCPA enforcement actions premised on payments to customs officials, tax officials, immigration officials and the like where the payments have nothing to do with “obtaining or retaining business” with a foreign government. Rather, the payments were alleged to have assisted the payor in “obtaining or retaining” business in the general sense.
The leading court decision on this issue is U.S. v. Kay. 359 F.3d 738, 740 (5th Cir. 2004). As further explained in this piece (pages 917-921), in Kay, a U.S. circuit court (one step below the U.S. Supreme Court) concluded that payments to a “foreign official” to lower taxes and custom duties in a foreign country can provide an unfair advantage to the payer over competitors and thereby assist the payer in obtaining and retaining business. The court concluded that there was “little difference” between these type of payments and traditional FCPA violations in which a company makes payments to a “foreign official” to influence or induce the official to award a government contract. Even so, the court stated that not all such payments to a “foreign official” outside the context of directly securing a foreign government contract violate the FCPA; it merely held that such payments “could” violate the FCPA. The court recognized that “there are bound to be circumstances” in which a custom or tax reduction merely increases the profitability of an existing profitable company and thus, presumably, does not assist the payer in obtaining or retaining business.
Despite Kay’s equivocal holding, there has been a significant increase in FCPA enforcement actions since the decision concerning payments to “foreign officials” that better position the payor to “obtain or retain business” in the general sense. (See for instance the “CustomsGate” category under the Search page of this site).
Thus, payments to London police officers that allowed News of the World to obtain non-public information to write sensational news stories – and thus sell more newspapers – would seem to fit the type of FCPA enforcement common post-Kay. Given that News Corp. is a media company and its product is information, such payments are similar to an oil and gas company making payments to a “foreign official” to obtain non-public information concerning the location of oil and gas deposits.
What about the FCPA’s books and records and internal control provisions?
In addition to its anti-bribery provisions, the FCPA also contains books and records and internal control provisions applicable to U.S. listed companies such as News Corp. The books and records provision requires that “issuers” (the statutory term for U.S. listed companies) “make and keep books, records, and accounts, which, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the issuer.” The internal controls provision require that “issuers” “devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls sufficient to provide reasonable assurances that:” among other things, “transactions are executed in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization;” “access to assets is permitted only in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization;” and “transactions are recorded as necessary to permit a preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles … and to maintain accountability for assets.”
These provisions, despite being part of the FCPA, are generic in scope. Thus, if other payments part of News Corp.’s wide-ranging scandal – such as “hush” settlement payments to phone hacking victims are misrecorded on the company’s books and records, such entries would provide the basis for independent FCPA books and records violations – even if such conduct does not directly implicate the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions. As to the London police payments, such payments, if not recorded accurately on the company’s books and records, would of course also give rise to an independent FCPA books and records violation. Both the DOJ and the SEC (which also has FCPA jurisdiction over U.S. listed companies) frequently hold parent companies liable for the books and records violations of subsidiaries on the theory that subsidiary books and records are consolidated with the parent company’s books and records for purposes of financial reporting.
As to the FCPA’s internal control provisions, the enforcement agencies often take the rather simplistic position that because the payments were made or because corporate expenses were not accurately recorded, the company did not have effective internal controls.
If News Corp. faces FCPA liability does that mean that executive officers will as well?
Not necessarily. Under U.S. legal principles, a corporate entity such as News Corp. can face legal liability based on the conduct of any employee or agent to the extent the employee or agent was acting within the scope of their authority and the conduct was intended to benefit, at least in part, the organization. Many FCPA enforcement actions against corporate entities result from the improper conduct of low to mid-ranking employees in the absence of any allegation that executive officers or board members knew about the conduct at issue or participated in the conduct at issue. Thus, just because News Corp. may face FCPA liability under these principles does not necessarily mean that executive officers will as well.
As to individuals (whether high-ranking executives or otherwise) there needs to be some evidence of culpable conduct – which in the FCPA criminal context – often means participating in the improper conduct, authorizing the improper conduct, or knowing of the improper conduct but failing to put a stop to it.
Will U.S. authorities defer to British authorities in investigating the London police payments?
Some have suggested that U.S. authorities are unlikely to bring an enforcement action because the U.K. has strong anti-corruption laws and is capable of handling this matter domestically. I disagree. The U.K. Bribery Act went live on July 1st, but it only covers conduct that occurs after that date. Prior to the Bribery Act, the U.K. had a hodgepodge of antiquated bribery and corruption statutes. However, the problem with those statutes is they required a “controlling mind” of the corporate to be involved in the conduct at issue in order to prosecute the entity. The weakness of these pre-Bribery Act laws was clearly evident in the U.K. BAE enforcement action from 2010. As the Serious Fraud Office stated in court papers “a serious evidential difficulty had been identified in respect of potential corruption charges, namely the difficulty of proving the involvement of a ‘controlling mind’ in the offending.” Thus, if there is no evidence of “controlling minds” being involved in the London police payments, pre-Bribery Act laws will be insufficient to bring bribery charges as occurred in the BAE matter. This evidentiary difficulty is one of the reasons the U.K. passed the Bribery Act.
U.S. enforcement agencies have a good relationship with their U.K. counterparts and cooperation between the agencies is likely to occur, but there is little reason to believe that the U.S. will stand down and not bring an enforcement action if that is what the evidence warrants. In fact, there have been several FCPA enforcement actions concerning U.K. business entities, based on conduct occurring in the U.K.,and/or involving U.K. citizens. See here for the 2010 FCPA enforcement action relating to Innospec, here for the FCPA enforcement action concerning employees of Pacific Consolidated Industries and here for the FCPA enforcement action against U.K. citizen Jeffrey Tesler.
What is likely to happen next?
There are multiple reasons why News Corp. will cooperate, if it is not already, in the DOJ’s FCPA investigation. The DOJ has substantial discretion (some would argue too much) in resolving corporate criminal matters. Under the DOJ’s Principles of Prosecution of Business Organizations (see here), one of the factors DOJ will consider in deciding how to resolve any potential action is the company’s cooperation. Cooperation in the FCPA context often means conducting an internal, independent review of the conduct at issue and sharing the results, witness statements, key documents, etc. with the enforcement agencies on a near real-time basis. Cooperation is also a mitigating factor under the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines which provide a monetary penalty range for all FCPA criminal actions.
How long is this FCPA gray cloud likely to hang over News Corp?
Likely for a few years. It is typical for an FCPA enforcement inquiry to begin based on a certain set of limited and discrete facts – here the London police payments. However, before the enforcement agencies (DOJ or SEC) will agree to resolve an FCPA matter, it is typical for the agencies to ask the “where else” question. In other words, the question will be – if News Corp. employees (broadly speaking) made the London police payments, did other News Corp. employees around the world make similar payments to “foreign officials” to “obtain or retain business.” To answer this question, and because News Corp. is likely in cooperation mode and because the company has an incentive to learn this information itself, News Corp. will likely conduct a targeted world-wide review of its operations. Such a review takes time and often costs tens of millions of dollars in professional fees and expenses. Because of these dynamics, it is typical for FCPA scrutiny – from the point of investigation to the point of enforcement action – to last between 2-4 years.