I recently spent some time on the DOJ’s FCPA Website and looked at all “Enforcement Actions” involving individuals from 2018 to the present.
Many of the separately listed “Enforcement Actions” involve multiple individual defendants and some individual enforcement actions are listed in more than one year.
By my estimation though, the DOJ’s FCPA website – from 2018 to the present – contains information about 175 individuals and set forth below are some interesting statistics.
From time to time, there are certain Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions in which the core allegations just seem to “keep on giving” and spawn several related enforcement actions.
A prime example were the many FCPA (and related) enforcement actions involving Haiti Teleco from approximately ten years ago (see here) and the many recent enforcement actions concerning Venezuela’s PDVSA.
Enforcement actions concerning Ecuador’s Seguros Sucre S.A. (“Seguros Sucre”), an alleged state-owned insurance company and “instrumentality” of the Ecuadorian government are beginning to add up.
Keeping track of DOJ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act actions against individuals can sometimes be tricky.
Many individual actions are announced through DOJ press releases, but some enforcement actions are not and just quietly appear on a court docket.
For instance, you probably have not heard much about the FCPA enforcement action against brothers Enrique Pere Ycaza and Antonio Pere Ycaza.
The criminal informations (see here and here) were filed in October 2020: (i) shortly after the September 2020 FCPA enforcement action against Sargeant Marine Inc. (SMI – a Florida based asphalt company) (see here for the prior post) concerning conduct in Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador; and (ii) shortly before the December 2020 FCPA enforcement action against Vitol (an energy trading company – see here for the prior post) concerning conduct in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico.
This March 15th post discussed a future $29 million “declination with disgorgement” enforcement action disclosed by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. in connection with its 2019 acquisition of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (JLT).
On March 22nd, the DOJ quietly updated its FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy declinations page by posting the March 18th “declination with disgorgement” letter.
The last time the DOJ self-identified an FCPA enforcement action as a “declination” was approximately 1.5 years ago (in August 2020).
Recently Raymond Kohut (a Canadian citizen who lived in the Bahamas and worked in business development for Gunvor Group Ltd., a Switzerland based commodities firm) pleaded guilty in connection with an Ecuador bribery scheme.
Similar to the DOJ’s recent money laundering charges against Jorge Cherrez Mino and John Robert Luzuriaga Aguinaga in connection with a bribery scheme in Ecuador (see here for the prior post), the DOJ’s allegations against Kohut provide a jurisdictional basis for FCPA anti-bribery offenses, yet the information “only” charges money laundering offenses.
