Does This Corruption Ranking Metric Really Tell You Anything You Don’t Already Know?
Recently, the European Centre for Anti-Corruption and State Building and the Center for International Private Enterprise released a “new free corruption analysis tool” called the Corruption Risk Forecast (CRF) which uses a term “Index for Public Integrity” (IPI) to rank certain countries.
According to this post, “the CRF relies on 30 fact-based indicators directly linked to observed sources instead of subjective coding of non-numerical data, which varies from year to year. The data used in the CRF is granular and comprehensive, spanning from the accessibility of land or business ownership information to the online disclosure of government mining concessions.”
That sounds pretty sophisticated.
However, my response to the CRF is similar to my response to other supposed measures or perceptions of corruption: does anyone really care and does one really need a formula or indicators to tell you things you probably already know?
Largest SEC Only FCPA Enforcement Actions
So-called “issuers” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (that is companies with shares traded on a U.S. exchange or otherwise with reporting obligations to the Securities and Exchange Commission) are subject to both Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice FCPA enforcement.
However, many FCPA enforcement actions against issuers are SEC only and lack a DOJ component. Although FCPA enforcement agencies rarely have to “prove” an FCPA case against issuers (rather issuers typically resolve an enforcement action through a resolution vehicle not subjected to any meaningful judicial scrutiny), theoretically the DOJ in a criminal action has a much higher burden of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) compared to the SEC in a civil action (preponderance of the evidence).
Regardless of the reasons for SEC enforcement actions against issuers that lack a DOJ component, set forth below are the 20 largest SEC only FCPA enforcement actions.
An FCPA Statistical Feast
If the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is an area of your practice or interest, this post may make you feel like a kid in a candy store.
FCPA Professor has been the place to visit this month for in-depth 2021 FCPA enforcement statistics as well as comparisons to historical statistics. If you missed the daily posts, no worries. This post consolidates in one place the statistics recently published on FCPA Professor.
Compared to prior years, certain of the 2021 year in review statistics are less than enlightening given the small number of corporate enforcement actions in 2021.
DOJ Individual Actions: The Strange Public – Private Divide
These pages track all sorts of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act statistics.
Some of the statistics are “inside baseball” like and other statistics (such as the long time periods associated with FCPA scrutiny or the general lack of individual enforcement actions in connection with most corporate enforcement actions) raise significant public policy issues and/or undermine government rhetoric.
The statistic discussed in this post fits all three categories: it is equal parts “inside baseball,” it raises significant public policy issues, it undermines government rhetoric, and moreover it is just plain strange.
A Focus On DOJ Individual Actions
This recent post focused on SEC individual FCPA actions in 2021 and historically. Today’s post highlights various facts and figures regarding the DOJ’s prosecution of individuals for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offenses in 2021 and historically.
The key word above is FCPA offenses.
Some in the FCPA space include enforcement actions containing non-FCPA charges (often money laundering charges against alleged “foreign officials” or with increasing frequency money laundering charges against alleged bribe payors – see here) related to an FCPA enforcement action as an individual FCPA enforcement action. While it is fine to track such enforcement actions, calling them FCPA enforcement actions is factually false.
Compared to corporate FCPA enforcement actions, tracking individual FCPA enforcement actions can be difficult because the DOJ does not publicly announce every individual enforcement action and/or certain matters are filed under seal. Moreover, and as relevant to this year’s statistics, the DOJ may originally file non-FCPA charges against certain individuals (complete with a press release announcing the action) but then subsequently file FCPA charges against the same individuals (without an announcing press release).