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Glencore … In Its Own Words

By on November 16, 2022 in Compliance, Cooperation, FCPA Inc., Foreign Evidence Issues, Glencore, Internal Investigation Issues
justsaying

As highlighted here, in May 2022 Glencore (a commodities company incorporated in the United Kingdom and headquartered in Switzerland) resolved a net $443 million FCPA enforcement action.

According to the DOJ: “From at least in or about 2007 up to and including in or about 2018, Glencore, through certain of its employees and agents, while acting on behalf of Glencore, together with its co-conspirators, knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed with others to corruptly provide more than $100 million in payments and other things of value to various intermediaries with the intent that a significant portion of these payments would be used to pay bribes to and for the benefit of foreign officials to secure an improper advantage and to influence those foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

A recent sentencing submission by Glencore makes for an interesting read.

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Laughing Out Loud At Certain Portions Of SEC Chair Gensler’s Speech

By on November 5, 2021 in Cooperation, Enforcement Agency Policy, Enforcement Agency Speeches, Individual Enforcement Action, SEC, Statute of Limitations, Voluntary Disclosure
Laughable

Yesterday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler delivered this speech.

I literally laughed out loud as to certain portions of Gensler’s speech.

I didn’t laugh because what Gensler said was unreasonable. To the contrary, much of what he said represents sound policy. Rather, I laughed  because I have closely followed SEC enforcement practices (and speeches from enforcement agency officials) for over a decade.

Gensler began his speech as follows:

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SEC Commissioner Calls The SEC’s Approach To Corporate Penalties “Fundamentally Flawed”

By on March 16, 2021 in Cooperation, Enforcement Agency Policy, Enforcement Agency Speeches, SEC
Crenshaw

In the FCPA’s modern era of enforcement, the bulk of SEC settlement amounts consist of disgorgement and prejudgment interest (See here). Stated differently (and although there have been a few notable exceptions), civil penalties are not a major feature of most corporate SEC Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions.

Even so, SEC civil penalties can be FCPA relevant and it is thus interesting to note that SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw (appointed by President Trump and sworn into office in August 2020) recently stated that the SEC’s historical practice of placing emphasis on factors beyond the actual misconduct when imposing corporate penalties is “fundamentally flawed.”

In this recent speech before the Council of Institutional Investors , Crenshaw began by stating how an SEC decision made 15 years (see here) “has taken us off course.”

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The Biggest Loser In The Beam Enforcement Action Is FCPA Enforcement

By on November 3, 2020 in Beam Inc., Cooperation, Enforcement Agency Policy, Uncategorized, Voluntary Disclosure
biggestloser

For years, the DOJ has encouraged business organizations to voluntarily disclose Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues.

For years, the DOJ has talked about transparency, consistency and predictability when it comes to FCPA enforcement. For instance, as highlighted in this prior post, in 2018 the DOJ’s Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General gave a speech in which he stated that the DOJ recognizes “the need for better defined ‘rules of the road’ in corporate enforcement” and that the DOJ “has taken affirmative steps to make our prevailing ‘rules of the road’ as plain and predictable as possible.” Numerous other DOJ speeches or policy statements could also be cited.

This post highlighted the DOJ’s recent $19.6 million enforcement action against Beam Suntory – a highly unusual development given that the SEC previously brought a related enforcement action against the company approximately 2.5 years ago concerning the same core conduct. As highlighted in the prior post and below, several other aspects of the DOJ enforcement action were also unusual.

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FCPA Enforcement Officials Address COVID-19 Related Questions

By on May 21, 2020 in Cooperation, COVID-19, Enforcement Agency Policy, Enforcement Agency Speeches, Inability to Pay
Soapbox

Earlier this week, Daniel Kahn (Sentior Deputy Chief, DOJ Criminal Division – Fraud Section) and Charles Cain (SEC FCPA Unit Chief) participated in this webinar.

During the webinar, Kahn and Cain addressed a variety questions related to their respective enforcement agencies relative to the COVID-19 crisis.

Set forth below are the issues addressed and their responses.

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