House Holds Hearing On FCPA Relevant Issues
Last week, the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment held a hearing titled “Ensuring Effectiveness, Fairness, and Transparency in Securities Law Enforcement.”
Several of the issues discussed at the hearing were Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relevant such as disgorgement, statute of limitations and tolling agreements, the long time periods associated with issuer scrutiny, and “regulation by enforcement.”
Once Again, Rebooting A Long-Standing FCPA Proposal, This Time In The Aftermath Of A Recent Disclosure By Millicom
Including the first time I proposed this concept in 2010, this is the seventh time I have written this general post (see here, here, here, here, here and here for the previous versions) and until things change I will keep writing it which means I will probably keep writing this same general post long into the future.
The proposal is this: when a company voluntarily discloses an FCPA internal investigation to the DOJ and/or SEC and when one or both of the enforcement agencies do not bring an enforcement action, have the enforcement agency publicly state, in a thorough and transparent manner, the facts the company disclosed and why the enforcement agency did not bring an enforcement action based on those facts.
Once Again, Rebooting A Long-Standing FCPA Proposal, This Time In The Aftermath Of A Recent Disclosure By Teradata
Including the first time I proposed this concept in 2010, this is the sixth time I have written this general post (see here, here, here, here and here for the previous versions) and until things change I will keep writing it which means I will probably keep writing this same general post long into the future.
The proposal is this: when a company voluntarily discloses an FCPA internal investigation to the DOJ and/or SEC and when one or both of the enforcement agencies do not bring an enforcement action, have the enforcement agency publicly state, in a thorough and transparent manner, the facts the company disclosed and why the enforcement agency did not bring an enforcement action based on those facts.
FCPA Reform And The Olympics
This recent Wall Street Journal article titled “A Corporate Giant Lurks Behind the Winter Olympics” chronicles Samsung’s role in the Olympics. According to the article “never before have an Olympics, a host country, and a major company been so closely intertwined” and the article largely focuses on the dual role of Lee Kun-hee “as Chairman of a major Olympic sponsor [Samsung] and an International Olympic Committee member.”
According to the article, Lee (after being released from prison for breach of trust and tax evasion) spent 170 days on 11 separate trips marketing Pyeongchange to IOC voters and that some of the meetings “were arranged with the help of Europe-based Samsung staff and conducted at the company’s local offices.”
Hail To The Chief
Today is Presidents’ Day.
This post highlights the roles of the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and William Clinton administrations in enactment and subsequent development of FCPA legal authority.
The article “The Story of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” also contains a detailed overview of the roles of the Ford and Carter administrations.