This post highlighted the recent $77 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Credit Suisse concerning its internship and hiring practices involving family members of alleged Chinese “foreign officials.” This post continues the analysis by highlighting additional issues to consider.
Timeline
Credit Suisse’s FCPA scrutiny appears to have begun in late 2013 (see here). Thus from start to finish, its scrutiny lasted approximately 4.5 years.
First, it was BNY Mellon Corp. in August 2015 for $14.8 million (see here and here for prior posts). Then, it was Qualcomm in March 2016 for $7.5 million (see here and here for prior posts). Then, it was JPMorgan in November 2016 for $202.6 million (see here, here, and here for prior posts).
Next up in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions (mostly targeting the financial services industry) focusing, in whole or in part, on internship and hiring practices being a form of bribery is Credit Suisse as the DOJ and SEC officially announced today (see here and here) the expected enforcement action (see here).
If you were wondering whether this “scurrilous and hypocritical” form of FCPA enforcement action (as stated by a former SEC Chairman see here) would carry forward to the Trump administration, you now have the answer.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
The FCPA version of this is: if a company announces an FCPA enforcement action, yet the DOJ/SEC are silent about it, and no document relevant to the enforcement action is in the public domain, has there been an enforcement action?
Perhaps one day the Credit Suisse enforcement action will be formally announced and resolution documents publicly released, but in the meantime, as highlighted below, there is a mystery as to what is going on.
Scrutiny alerts and updates, survey says, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Scrutiny Alerts and Updates
Credit Suisse
As highlighted in this prior post, Credit Suisse has been under FCPA scrutiny for approximately four years for its hiring practices.
Recently the company disclosed:
Harder pleads guilty, scrutiny alerts and updates, when the dust settles, visual proof, and golf. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Harder Pleads Guilty
As highlighted in this post, in January 2015 the DOJ announced a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Dmitrij Harder for allegedly bribing an official with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Harder is a Russian national, naturalized German citizen and permanent resident of the U.S. and the former owner and President of Chestnut Consulting Group Inc. and Chestnut Consulting Group Co. both based in Pennsylvania.
The enforcement action was notable in that it invoked the rarely used “public international organization” prong of the FCPA’s “foreign official” definition.
