In the classroom, what if, scrutiny alerts and updates, and for the reading stack.  It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

In the Classroom

I am pleased to share this release concerning a new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act class I am teaching this semester at Southern Illinois University School of Law.  As noted in the release, the course is believed to be one of the first specific FCPA law school classes offered that is exclusively devoted to the FCPA, FCPA enforcement and FCPA compliance.

I am grateful for the media coverage the class has attracted.  See here from Corporate Counsel, here from Main Justice, and here from Corporate Crime Reporter.

What If?

As highlighted in this previous post concerning JPMorgan’s scrutiny in China,  the conduct at issue in the front-page New York Times article was disclosed (sort of) in the company’s August 7th quarterly filing.  That filing identified, under the heading “Regulatory Developments” the following.

“A request from the SEC Division of Enforcement seeking information and documents relating to, among other matters, the Firm’s employment of certain former employees in Hong Kong and its business relationships with certain clients.”

In the disclosure context, it has been noted by various courts that once a company “speaks” on an issue, its statements to the market can not be so incomplete as to be misleading.  Was JPMorgan’s August 7th disclosure misleading?  If not misleading, a bit “too cute?”  If JPMorgan’s August 7th disclosure mentioned the reason for the SEC’s request for information and that the request was in connection with an FCPA inquiry, would there even have been a front-page article in the NY Times on August 18th?  And if there was no front-page NY Times article would JPMorgan’s FCPA scrutiny have dominated the news this week?

Scrutiny Alerts and Updates

Entertainment Gaming Asia

Entertainment Gaming Asia, Inc., a company with shares listed on NASDAQ, is the focus of this article in the Cambodia Daily which states:

“Venturing into Cambodia’s casino market in May 2011, Macau-backed gambling firm Entertainment Gaming Asia (EGA) promised tens of thousands of dollars to the wife of Pailin’s provincial governor in order to lease land for the construction of a new casino … […]   There is no suggestion that the land lease arrangement breaks any laws.  But EGA’s registration with the SEC means the company is subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). […] EGA senior vice president Traci Mangini declined to comment on the land-lease arrangement.“We are not available for comment,” Ms. Mangini said in an email. Contacted this week, Mr. Chhean [who has held the powerful local position of governor in Pailin for more than a decade] insisted there was nothing improper about the land being rented from his wife. “It is correct that they hire the land [from my wife], they have hired it for two years already,” he said. He said the casino was fully approved by the government in Phnom Penh, and that he had no role in the licensing decision. Mr. Chhean said there was nothing inappropriate about the wife of a governor having business interests.”

Microsoft

This March 2013 post highlighted Microsoft’s FCPA scrutiny and how the DOJ and SEC “are examining kickback allegations made by a former Microsoft representative in China, as well as the company’s relationship with certain resellers and consultants in Romania and Italy.”  Add Pakistan and Russia to the list.  As reported in this Wall Street Journal article:

“In Russia, an anonymous tipster told Microsoft that resellers of its software allegedly funneled kickbacks to executives of a state-owned company to win a deal, the people familiar with the matter said. In Pakistan, a tipster alleged that Microsoft authorized a consulting firm to pay for a five day trip to Egypt for a government official and his wife in order to win a tender, the people familiar with the matter said. The two contacted Microsoft directly in the last eight months, the people said.”

Eli Lilly

In December 2012, Eli Lilly agreed to pay $29 million to resolve an SEC FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in China, Brazil, Poland and Russia (see here for the prior post).

Lilly is again under scrutiny.  As referenced here by Reuters:

“U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it was ‘deeply concerned’ about allegations published in a Chinese newspaper that it spent more than 30 million yuan ($4.90 million) to bribe doctors in China to prescribe the firm’s medicines instead of rival products. A former senior manager for the company, identified by the pseudonym Wang Wei, told the 21st Century Business Herald that bribery and illegal payments at Eli Lilly’s China operations were widespread. […] Eli Lilly said in an emailed statement to Reuters that it was looking into the matter. ‘Although we have not been able to verify these allegations, we take them seriously, and we are continuing our investigation,’ the statement said. The U.S. firm said it had been made aware of “similar allegations” of kickbacks in 2012 by a former sales manager. It said the firm had opened an investigation at that time involving staff interviews, e-mail monitoring and expense report audits.”

For the Reading Stack

Informative posts here and here on the FCPAmericas blog on how Brazil’s new bribery law compares to the FCPA.  Also on the FCPAmericas blog, informative posts here and here regarding the unknows of the law.

In reference to JPMorgan’s FCPA scrutiny over its alleged hiring of family members of alleged “foreign officials,” this article in the Economist states:

“Connections also count in the West, of course. Following initial reports of the SEC’s investigation in the New York Times, a flood of stories have noted the jobs held in politically sensitive American firms by the sprogs of American politicians. Even when offspring are not involved, the revolving door between the public and private sectors raises questions about why people are hired. JPMorgan Chase did not hire Tony Blair as a senior adviser for his knowledge of risk weights, after all. Mary Schapiro, a former head of the SEC, recently joined Promontory, a consultancy packed with ex-regulators used by banks to cope with regulation (she has said she will not lobby any government body in her new role). If it is unfair to cite these names, it is only because there are so many others. If the regulators genuinely fret about why firms make hiring decisions, they may want to extend their inquiries to Washington, DC, and New York as well.”

In the context of GlaxoSmithKline’s scrutiny in China, this Wall Street Journal article highlights “China’s fast-growing but deeply underfunded medical system” where “doctors are widely seen as underpaid, which makes them prime recipients of honorariums, which are
legal, or illegal cuts of sales from drug companies …”.

*****

A good weekend to all.