Issues To Consider From The Stericycle Enforcement Action
This previous post highlighted the recent net $59 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Stericycle (an Illinois based medical waste disposal company) for conduct in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
Portions of the alleged conduct were egregious in that an executive of the company’s Latin America division orchestrated the bribery schemes and others associated with the company used “spreadsheets to track the bribe payments.”
Nevertheless, there are several legal and policy issues to consider from the enforcement action.
Timeline
As highlighted in this post, Stericycle disclosed its FCPA scrutiny in mid-2017.
Issues To Consider From The Sargeant Marine Enforcement Action
This prior post went in-depth into the recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Sargeant Marine Inc. (SMI) and this post continues the analysis by highlighting additional issues to consider.
Why Disclose?
For approximately 15 years, the DOJ has been encouraging business organizations to voluntarily disclose FCPA violations. Yet, time and time again, the DOJ undermines its goal by how it resolves certain enforcement actions.
The SMI matter is the latest example that should cause a board member, audit committee member or others involved in the voluntary disclosure decision to pause.
Issues To Consider From The World Acceptance Corp. Enforcement Action
This prior post went in-depth into the SEC’s recent $21.7 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against World Acceptance Corp. (WAC) and this post highlights additional issues to consider.
Timeline
As highlighted in this post, WAC disclosed its FCPA scrutiny in mid-2017. Thus, from start to finish, its scrutiny lasted more than three years. I’ve said it many times, and will continue saying it until the cows come home, if the SEC wants its FCPA enforcement program to be viewed as credible and effective it must resolve instances of FCPA scrutiny much quicker.
Friday Roundup
Listening in, guilty plea, marketing the opaque, and machine learning. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Listening In
During a recent investor conference call, Cardinal Health executives were discussing how the company continues to evaluate which countries they should be in because “there’s a lot of hidden cost when you’re in a country.”
Company CEO Michael Kaufmann stated:
Friday Roundup
Scrutiny alert, coincidence or FCPA-related, ripple dismissed, and more shallow commentary, and ISO 37001 laughable. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Scrutiny Alert
As highlighted in this previous post, in late 2013/early 2014 United Technologies Corp. (UTC) disclosed FCPA scrutiny concerning a non-employee sales representative retained in China. Recently, the company disclosed: “On March 7, 2018, the DOJ notified UTC that it had decided to close its investigation of this matter. Based on our ongoing discussions with the SEC staff to resolve this matter, UTC recorded a charge of approximately $11 million in the second quarter of 2018.”