Friday Roundup
Monitor costs, scrutiny alert, quotable, and survey says. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Monitor Costs
As highlighted in prior posts here and here, in late 2019 Ericsson resolved a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action and the $1.06 billion settlement amount was the largest net FCPA settlement amount in history. As a condition of settlement, Ericsson was required to engage an independent compliance monitor for a three-year period.
Recently, Ericsson disclosed “a provision of SEK 0.6 billion [approximately $60 million] was made to cover future monitoring costs.” (See here for the article “FCPA Ripples.”)
Do We Really Need C = T – O To Tell Us Things We Already Likely Know?
I recently came across Risk Advisory’s Corruption Challenges Index.
My reaction to the Corruption Challenges Index is the same as my reaction to other rankings of corruption published by for profit companies: does the compliance community really need surveys or formulas (such as C = T – O read more below) to tell us things we already likely know? (See here for the prior post).
This Is Why FCPA Inc. Needs A Common Language
For years, these pages have highlighted the need for a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act common language as to the basic question of “what is an FCPA enforcement action?” (See here, here, here, here).
This article titled “A Common Language to Remedy Distorted FCPA Enforcement Statistics” exposes in detailed fashion various distorted FCPA enforcement statistics. As highlighted in the article, the absence of a FCPA common language has numerous negative effects including infecting nearly all FCPA enforcement statistics.
The most reliable and accurate way to keep FCPA enforcement statistics is by using the “core” approach which focuses on unique instances of FCPA scrutiny. Using this approach, there were 14 corporate FCPA enforcement actions in 2019 that resulted in approximately $2.65 billion in net FCPA settlement amounts – the largest in FCPA history. (See here).
DOJ Individual Actions: The Strange Public – Private Divide
This post highlighted certain facts and figures regarding the DOJ’s prosecution of individuals for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offenses in 2019 and historically.
As highlighted in the prior post, DOJ FCPA individual enforcement actions are significantly skewed by a small handful of enforcement actions and the reality is, despite the DOJ’s rhetoric, approximately 80% of DOJ corporate enforcement actions since 2006 have not (at least yet) resulted in any related DOJ FCPA charges against company employees.
Another very interesting and significant picture emerges when analyzing actual DOJ individual FCPA prosecutions based on whether the individual charged was employed by or otherwise associated with an issuer or a private business organization.
The Origins Of 2019 Corporate Enforcement Actions
This recent post compared corporate FCPA enforcement actions in 2019 to prior years. However, before a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action is announced, scrutiny must first arise.
This post highlights the origins of the 14 core corporate enforcement actions in 2019. (See here for a similar post highlighting the origins of 2018 corporate enforcement actions; here for 2017 corporate enforcement actions and here for 2016 corporate enforcement actions).
As highlighted in the post, like prior years, 2019 corporate enforcement actions originated in a variety of ways from voluntary disclosures, to pro-active government investigations and industry sweeps, to foreign law enforcement investigations and foreign media reporting.