As highlighted here, following a typical career path, the DOJ’s FCPA Unit Chief recently departed for private practice.
The job was recently posted and applicants should have “at least 5 years of federal prosecution experience; have experience investigating and prosecuting FCPA matters; have supervisory experience; and have experience working investigations with foreign authorities.”
Other “preferred qualifications” include:
Kenneth Polite became the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Criminal Division in early 2021.
During his tenure, Polite announced “important revisions to [the DOJ’s] Corporate Enforcement Policy, which applies to all corporate criminal matters handled by the Criminal Division, including all FCPA cases nationwide.” (See here for the prior post).
As stated by Polite, “these revisions provide specific, additional incentives to companies for voluntary self-disclosures, as well as for cooperation and remediation and “make clear that there will be very different outcomes for companies that do not self-disclose, meaningfully cooperate with our investigations, or remediate.”
As sure as the sun rises in the east and dogs bark – and following a well traveled career path – DOJ FCPA Unit Chief David Last is joining a law firm (Cleary Gottlieb) for an FCPA practice. (See here).
According to the Cleary Gottlieb release:
As highlighted in this prior post, in 2017 a federal jury convicted Ng Lap Seng of two counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, one count of paying bribes and gratuities, one count of money laundering and two counts of conspiracy “for his role in a scheme to bribe United Nations ambassadors to obtain support to build a conference center in Macau that would host, among other events, the annual United Nations Global South-South Development Expo.”
In 2018 Seng was sentenced to 48 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In addition, Seng was ordered to pay a $1 million fine, $302, 977 in restitution to the United Nations and the judge also ordered a forfeiture money judgment of $1.5 million. In March 2021, Seng was granted a compassionate release from prison and deported to China.
Recently, in a civil lawsuit brought by the Law Firm of Hugh H. Mo, P.C., Ng was ordered to pay $1.9 million to the firm for services rendered in connection with the FCPA enforcement action. (See 2002 WL 17363951).
The decision, after a bench trial conducted by Judge Alvin Hellerstein (S.D.N.Y) provides a rare glimpse into representing a criminal FCPA defendant and the lawyers and services involved in such a representation.
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.
