Two Firsts In The U.K. – First Use Of Sec. 7 Of The Bribery Act In A Foreign Bribery Action And First Use Of A DPA
Earlier this week, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office announced two firsts in connection with an enforcement action against Standard Bank Plc (currently known as ICBC Standard Bank Plc):
(i) the first use of Section 7 of the Bribery Act (the so-called failure to prevent bribery offense) in a foreign bribery action; and
(ii) the first use of a deferred prosecution agreement in the U.K..
The conduct at issue focused on allegations that a former affiliate company of Standard Bank made an improper payment to a partner in Tanzania intended to induce members of the Government of Tanzania to show favor to the affiliate’s and Standard Bank’s proposal for a US$600 million private placement offering to be carried out on behalf of the Government of Tanzania.
The underlying source documents are linked below and future posts will further explore the DPA, the Sec. 7 “failure to prevent” bribery offense, and the related U.S. enforcement action against Standard Bank.
(Speaking of Sec. 7 of the Bribery Act, the SFO announced today the following: “The Serious Fraud Office can confirm that Sweett Group plc has admitted an offence under Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 regarding conduct in the Middle East. […] Further details will be made available when the matter comes before court, at a date still to be determined.).
In this release, the SFO stated:
“The Serious Fraud Office’s first application for a Deferred Prosecution Agreement was … approved by Lord Justice Leveson at Southwark Crown Court, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The counterparty to the DPA, Standard Bank Plc (now known as ICBC Standard Bank Plc) (“Standard Bank”), was the subject of an indictment alleging failure to prevent bribery contrary to section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010. This indictment, pursuant to DPA proceedings, was immediately suspended. This was also the first use of section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 by any prosecutor.
As a result of the DPA, Standard Bank will pay financial orders of US$25.2 million and will be required to pay the Government of Tanzania a further US$7 million in compensation. The bank has also agreed to pay the SFO’s reasonable costs of £330,000 in relation to the investigation and subsequent resolution of the DPA.
In addition to the financial penalty that has been imposed, Standard Bank has agreed to continue to cooperate fully with the SFO and to be subject to an independent review of its existing anti-bribery and corruption controls, policies and procedures regarding compliance with the Bribery Act 2010 and other applicable anti-corruption laws. It is required to implement recommendations of the independent reviewer (Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP).
Commenting on the DPA, Director of the SFO David Green CB QC said:
“This landmark DPA will serve as a template for future agreements. The judgment from Lord Justice Leveson provides very helpful guidance to those advising corporates. It also endorses the SFO’s contention that the DPA in this case was in the interests of justice and its terms fair, reasonable and proportionate. I applaud Standard Bank for their frankness with the SFO and their prompt and early engagement with us.”
The suspended charge related to a US$6 million payment by a former sister company of Standard Bank, Stanbic Bank Tanzania, in March 2013 to a local partner in Tanzania, Enterprise Growth Market Advisors (EGMA). The SFO alleges that the payment was intended to induce members of the Government of Tanzania, to show favour to Stanbic Tanzania and Standard Bank’s proposal for a US$600 million private placement to be carried out on behalf of the Government of Tanzania. The placement generated transaction fees of US$8.4 million, shared by Stanbic Tanzania and Standard Bank.
On 18 April 2013, Standard Bank’s solicitors Jones Day reported the matter to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and on 24 April to the SFO. It also instructed Jones Day to begin an investigation and to disclose its findings to the SFO. The resulting report was sent to the SFO on 21 July 2014.
The SFO reviewed the material obtained and conducted its own interviews. Subsequently, the Director of the SFO considered that the public interest would likely be met by a DPA with Standard Bank and negotiations were commenced accordingly.
The SFO has worked with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) throughout this process. A penalty of $4.2m has been agreed between Standard Bank and the SEC in respect of separate related conduct.
We are very grateful to the DoJ, the SEC, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Financial Conduct Authority for their assistance in resolving this investigation and deferred prosecution.”
The SFO release also provided the following information.
- The charge against Standard Bank has been suspended for three years, after which, subject to the bank’s compliance with the terms of the DPA, the SFO will discontinue the proceedings.
- Standard Bank’s US$25.2 million total financial penalty, which is payable to HM Treasury, consists of a US$16.8 million financial penalty and a US$8.4 million disgorgement of profits. The compensation due to the Government of Tanzania consists of US$6 million, plus interest of US$1,046,196.58.
BNY Mellon Becomes The First – Of What Is Expected To Be Several Financial Services Companies – To Pony Up Millions Based On Its Internship Practices
Congress never intended the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to be an all-purpose corporate ethics statute. But with increasing frequency, this is what the DOJ and SEC have converted the FCPA into based on enforcement theories that are rarely subject to judicial scrutiny.
Previously there have been FCPA enforcement actions that included allegations of improper hiring of spouses or children of alleged “foreign officials” (see here for a prior post), but until yesterday there has not been, it is believed, an enforcement action based exclusively on such a theory.
The financial industry has been under intense FCPA scrutiny the past two years (see here for a prior post) concerning its alleged hiring and internship practices. This scrutiny has generated a significant amount of critical commentary. For instance, in this Wall Street Journal editorial former SEC Commissioner Arthur Levitt called the FCPA scrutiny of the financial industry “scurrilous and hypocritical.” He wrote:
“If you walk the halls of any institution in the U.S.—Congress, federal courthouses, large corporations, the White House, American embassies and even the offices of the SEC—you are likely to run into friends and family members of powerful and wealthy people.”
Yesterday this scrutiny yielded the first – of what is expected to be many in coming months – enforcement action.
It was against BNY Mellon Corp. (see here for the SEC’s press release) and the action was based on findings the company provided “valuable student internships to family members of foreign government officials affiliated with a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.”
Internships of course have been provided to relatives of customers so long as their have been internships. For the U.S. government to now equate this with corrupt intent and bribery is questionable. But then again, FCPA enforcement is not necessarily about the law, but more a game of the SEC using its leverage against risk averse corporations to extract settlement amounts.
Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, and based on an enforcement theory not subjected to any judicial scrutiny, BNY Mellon ponied up $14.8 million dollars rather than engage its principal government regulator in litigation.
The SEC’s administrative cease and desist order states in summary fashion:
“This matter concerns violations of the anti-bribery and internal accounting controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) by BNY Mellon. The violations took place during 2010 and 2011, when employees of BNY Mellon sought to corruptly influence foreign officials in order to retain and win business managing and servicing the assets of a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.
These officials sought, and BNY Mellon agreed to provide, valuable internships for their family members. BNY Mellon provided the internships without following its standard hiring procedures for interns, and the interns were not qualified for BNY Mellon’s existing internship programs.
BNY Mellon failed to devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls around its hiring practices sufficient to provide reasonable assurances that its employees were not bribing foreign officials in contravention of company policy.”
Under the heading “BNY Mellon’s Business with the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund” the order states:
“During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon’s business in the EMEA region collected fees for services provided to the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. [The Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund is described as follows. “[A] government body responsible for management and administration of assets of a Middle Eastern country, as entrusted to it by that country’s Minister of Finance. The Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund is wholly owned by that country and was created to perform the function of generating revenue for it. The Minister of Finance serves as Chairman of the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund’s Board of Directors and its most senior members are political appointees. The Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund generally hires external managers to make day-to-day investment decisions concerning its assets.”] Those fees arose from government contracts awarded to BNY Mellon through a process requiring approval from certain foreign government officials, and also from additional assets allocated to BNY Mellon under existing contracts at the discretion of certain foreign government officials.
The Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund first became a client of BNYM Asset Servicing in 2000, when the European Office [The European Office is described as follows: “[T]he Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund’s office in Europe. The European Office is responsible for managing a portion of the assets entrusted to the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. Unlike the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund, its parent, the European Office generally uses its own inhouse investment professionals to actively manage assets for which it is responsible.”] awarded to BNY Mellon custody of certain assets. Since then, BNY Mellon has earned regular fees for the safekeeping and administration of Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund assets. According to the terms of the custody agreement, these fees are subject to increase from time to time as the European Office allocates additional assets to BNY Mellon. While the total amount of Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund assets under custody by BNY Mellon has varied over time, during the relevant time period BNY Mellon held Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund assets totaling approximately $55 billion.
BNY Mellon entered an additional agreement with the European Office in 2003 permitting BNYM Asset Servicing to loan out certain of the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund assets under custody within set guidelines, which varied over time.
This securities lending arrangement significantly increased BNY Mellon’s revenues from its dealings with the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. In 2010 and 2011, BNYM Asset Servicing repeatedly sought to modify the lending guidelines, which had been significantly restricted following the 2008 economic crash, in order to bring the guidelines back to pre- 2008 levels and further grow the securities lending business with the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. During the relevant time period, BNYM Asset Servicing sought to increase the amount of assets under custody from the European Office.
In 2009, the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund became a client of BNYM Asset Management when the fund entered into an investment management agreement designating the Boutique [described as a wholly owned asset management firm operating within BNYM Asset Management] to manage assets worth approximately $711 million (the “Boutique mandate”). The bulk of the assets under the investment management agreement were funded in November 2009, with an additional portion transferring to BNY Mellon in June 2010. Official X [described as a senior official with the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund during the relevant time period] was BNYM Asset Management’s principal point of contact in connection with the Boutique mandate. According to the terms of the agreement, the amount of assets under management was subject to change, as the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund could allocate additional assets to the Boutique mandate at any time. In June 2010, the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund transferred an additional $689,000 to BNY Mellon under the Boutique mandate. During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon sought to increase the amount of its Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund assets under management.”
Under the heading “The Internships” the order states:
“Officials X and Y [described as was a senior official at the European Office during the relevant time period] requested that BNY Mellon provide their family members with valuable internships. Officials X and Y made numerous follow-up requests about the status, timing and other details of the internships for their relatives after the internships had been offered, and delivering the internships as requested was seen by certain relevant BNY Mellon employees as a way to influence the officials’ decisions.
In February 2010, at the conclusion of a business meeting, Official X made a personal and discreet request that BNY Mellon provide internships to two of his relatives: his son, Intern A [described as a recent college graduate], and nephew, Intern B [also described as a recent college graduate]. As a Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund department head, Official X had authority over allocations of new assets to existing managers such as the Boutique, and was viewed within BNY Mellon as a “key decision maker” at the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. Official X later persistently inquired of BNY Mellon employees concerning the status of his internship request, asking whether and when BNY Mellon would deliver the internships. At one point, Official X said to his primary contact at BNY Mellon that the request represented an “opportunity” for BNY Mellon, and that the official could secure internships for his family members from a competitor of BNY Mellon if it did not satisfy his personal request. The same BNY Mellon employee later wrote to a BNY Mellon colleague that Official X had become “angry” because BNY Mellon was experiencing delays in delivering the internships, and had openly questioned the employee’s job performance and professionalism because of the delays.
As reflected in contemporaneous e-mails and other documents, BNY Mellon delivered the valuable internship sought by Official X in order to assist BNY Mellon in obtaining or retaining business. For example:
A Boutique account manager wrote in a February 2010 e-mail concerning the internship request for Interns A and B that BNY Mellon was “not in a position to reject the request from a commercial point of view” even though it was a “personal request” from Official X. The employee stated: “by not allowing the internships to take place, we potentially jeopardize our mandate with [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund].”
In June 2010, an employee of BNY Mellon with primary responsibility for the Asset Management relationship with the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund wrote of the internships for Interns A and B: “I want more money for this. I expect more for this. . . . We’re doing [Official X] a favor.”
In a separate e-mail to a different BNY Mellon colleague, the same employee stated “I am working on an expensive ‘favor’ for [Official X] – an internship for his son and cousin (don’t mention to him as this is not official).”
The same employee advised a colleague in human resources: “[W]e have to be careful about this. This is more of a personal request . . . [Official X] doesn’t want [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund] to know about it.” The same employee later directed his administrative assistant to refrain from sending e-mail correspondence concerning Official X’s internship request “because it was a personal favor.”
After granting Official X’s request to hire Interns A and B, BNY Mellon retained the Boutique mandate, and further assets were transferred to BNY Mellon by Official X’s department within a few months.
In February 2010, around the same time that Official X made his initial internship request, Official Y asked through a subordinate European Office employee that BNY Mellon provide an internship to the official’s son, Intern C [also described as a recent college graduate]. As a senior official at the European Office, Official Y had authority to make decisions directly impacting BNY Mellon’s business. Internal BNY Mellon documents reflected Official Y’s importance in this regard, stating that Official Y was “crucial to both retaining and gaining new business” for BNY Mellon. One or more European Office employees acting on Official Y’s behalf later inquired repeatedly about the status and details of the internship, including during discussions of the transfer of European Office assets to BNY Mellon. At the time of Official Y’s initial request, a number of recent client service issues had threatened to weaken the relationship between BNY Mellon and the European Office.
The BNY Mellon employee with primary responsibility for managing the custody relationship with the European Office viewed Official Y’s request as important to assist BNYM Asset Servicing in obtaining or retaining business. For example:
The BNY Mellon custody relationship manager explained to more senior officers within BNY Mellon that granting Official Y’s request was likely to “influence any future decisions taken within [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund].”
The same BNY Mellon relationship manager expressed to colleagues his concern that one of BNY Mellon’s competitors would agree to hire Intern C if BNY Mellon would not, and that BNY Mellon might lose market share to the competitor as a result.
The relationship manager wrote: “Its [sic] silly things like this that help influence who ends up with more assets / retaining dominant position.”
The relationship manager separately wrote that meeting Official Y’s requests was the “only way” to increase BNY Mellon’s share of business from the European Office, aside from obtaining assets in new countries.
After granting Official Y’s request to hire his son, Intern C, BNY Mellon retained its existing custody and securities lending business from the European Office, which continued to grow.
During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon had an established summer internship program for undergraduates as well as a separate summer program for postgraduates actively pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or similar degree. Admission to the BNY Mellon postgraduate internship program was highly competitive and characterized by stringent hiring standards. To recruit postgraduates, BNY Mellon had relationships with a small number of the most highly selective schools in the United States and the United Kingdom from which it sourced candidates. Successful applicants had to achieve a minimum grade point average, and had to advance through multiple rounds of interviews in addition to having relevant prior work experience and a demonstrated affinity for and interest in financial services work. BNY Mellon also placed an emphasis on relevant leadership experience.
The Interns did not meet these rigorous criteria and BNY Mellon did not evaluate or hire the Interns through its established internship programs. For example, as recent graduates not enrolled in any degree program, the Interns did not meet the basic entrance standard for a BNY Mellon postgraduate internship. Further, contrary to BNY Mellon’s goal of converting student interns to full-time hires, the Interns were to return to the Middle East at the conclusion of their internship and BNY Mellon had no plan to hire them as full-time employees. Nor did the individual Interns have the requisite academic or professional credentials for its existing internship programs.
Though they did not meet the criteria of BNY Mellon’s existing internship programs, BNY Mellon hired Interns A, B and C. Contrary to its standard practice, BNY Mellon decided to hire the Interns before even meeting or interviewing them. Indeed, the special “work experiences” sought by Officials X and Y were not regular undergraduate or graduate summer internships at all, but customized one-of-a-kind training programs. The internships were valuable work experience, and the requesting officials derived significant personal value in being able to confer this benefit on their family members. As requested by Officials X and Y, BNY Mellon designed customized work experiences for the Interns. These bespoke internships were rotational in nature, meaning that Interns A, B and C had the opportunity to work in a number of different BNY Mellon business units, enhancing the value of the work experience beyond that normally provided to BNY Mellon interns. Interns A and B were placed in Boston, Massachusetts and were employed by BNY Mellon from August 6, 2010 through February 25, 2011. Intern C was onboarded and placed in London, England and interned with BNY Mellon from July 4, 2010 through December 17, 2010. These approximately six-month internships were significantly longer than the work experiences typically afforded to BNY Mellon interns through the normal summer internship program.
The internships were neither inexpensive nor easy for BNY Mellon to structure. BNY Mellon determined, because Interns A and B had already graduated from college, that Interns A and B should be paid above the normal salary scale for BNY Mellon undergraduate interns but below the scale for postgraduate interns. Intern C was unpaid. BNY Mellon also coordinated obtaining visas for all three of the Interns so that they could travel from the Middle East to work in the countries in which they were placed. BNY Mellon paid the legal fees and filing costs related to the visas. As the BNY Mellon Asset Management employee responsible for arranging two of the three internships wrote in a contemporaneous e-mail, the internships constituted an “expensive favor” for the requesting foreign official.
BNY Mellon hired all three of the Interns, with the knowledge and approval of senior BNY Mellon employees:
According to the BNY Mellon Asset Management employee with primary responsibility for arranging the internships for Interns A and B, he had initially struggled to deliver the internships as requested by Official X until the internships had the “blessing” of a senior BNY Mellon employee, after which “it started to move.” The senior employee facilitated the internships by contacting human resources on behalf of the Interns, forwarding their resumes and stating that he “would like us to support.”
The BNY Mellon relationship manager with lead responsibility for arranging the internship for Intern C sent an e-mail to two senior BNYM Asset Servicing officers describing Official Y’s request and seeking their “support” for the internship. The same relationship manager later wrote to BNY Mellon colleagues seeking assistance in arranging the internship and stating “[p]lease know that this request has the backing of both [senior officers].”
In October 2010, Official Y made a further request that BNY Mellon modify the custom internship it had created for Intern C so that he could rotate through an additional BNY Mellon business unit. This request was also granted with the knowledge and approval of senior BNY Mellon employees.
The Interns were less than exemplary employees. On at least one occasion, Interns A and B were confronted by a BNY Mellon human resources employee concerning their repeated absences from work. A Boutique portfolio manager who worked with Intern C observed that his performance was “okay” and that “he wasn’t actually as hardworking as I would have hoped.” Despite these issues, BNY Mellon accommodated the Interns in order to favorably influence Officials X and Y.
Under the heading “BNY Mellon’s FCPA-Related Policies, Training and Internal Controls” the order states:
During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon had a code of conduct, as well as a specific FCPA policy, which prohibited BNY Mellon employees from violating the statute. While BNY Mellon’s policies stated that “any money . . . gift . . . or anything of value” provided to a foreign official might constitute a bribe, employees were provided with little additional guidance that was tailored to the types of risks related to hiring faced by BNY Mellon’s international asset servicing unit and asset management business division.
During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon provided training on employees’ obligations under the FCPA and BNY Mellon’s policies, but did not ensure that all employees took the training or understood BNY Mellon’s policies.
During the relevant time period, BNY Mellon had few specific controls relating to the hiring of customers and relatives of customers, including foreign government officials. Sales staff and client relationship managers were permitted wide discretion in making initial hiring decisions and human resources was not trained to flag hires that were potentially problematic. Senior managers were able to approve hires requested by foreign officials with no mechanism to ensure that potential hiring violations were reviewed by anyone with a legal or compliance background. BNY Mellon’s system of internal accounting controls was insufficiently tailored to the corruption risks inherent in the hiring of client referrals, and therefore inadequate to fully effectuate BNY Mellon’s policy against bribery of foreign officials.”
Based on the above, the order finds:
“BNY Mellon violated [the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions] by corruptly providing valuable internships to relatives of foreign officials from the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund in order to assist BNY Mellon in retaining and obtaining business. BNY Mellon also violated [the FCPA’s internal controls provisions], by failing to devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls sufficient to provide reasonable assurances that its employees were not bribing foreign officials.”
Under the heading “Commission Consideration of BNY Mellon’s Cooperation and Remedial Efforts” the order states:
“In determining to accept the Offer, the Commission considered cooperation BNY Mellon afforded to the Commission staff and the remedial acts undertaken by BNY Mellon. Prior to the investigation by the Commission of the Interns, BNY Mellon had begun a process of enhancing its anti-corruption compliance program including: making changes to the Anti-Corruption Policy to explicitly address the hiring of government officials’ relatives; requiring that every application for a full-time hire or an internship be routed through a centralized HR application process; enhancing its Code of Conduct to require that every year each employee certifies that he or she is not responsible for hiring through a non-centralized channel; and requiring as part of a centralized application process that each applicant indicate whether she or a close personal associate is or has recently been a government official, and, if so, additional review by BNY Mellon’s anti-corruption office is mandated.”
In the SEC’s press release, Andrew Ceresney (Director of the SEC Enforcement Division) stated:
“The FCPA prohibits companies from improperly influencing foreign officials with ‘anything of value,’ and therefore cash payments, gifts, internships, or anything else used in corrupt attempts to win business can expose companies to an SEC enforcement action. BNY Mellon deserved significant sanction for providing valuable student internships to family members of foreign officials to influence their actions.”
Kara Brockmeyer (Chief of the SEC’s FCPA Unit) stated:
“Financial services providers face unique corruption risks when seeking to win business in international markets, and we will continue to scrutinize industries that have not been vigilant about complying with the FCPA.”
As noted in the release:
“Without admitting or denying the findings, the company agreed to pay $8.3 million in disgorgement, $1.5 million in prejudgment interest, and a $5 million penalty. The SEC considered the company’s remedial acts and its cooperation with the investigation when determining a settlement.”
Yesterday BNY Mellon’s share price closed up .7%.
Jay Holtmeier (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) represented the company.
Friday Roundup
Like it, quotable, and scrutiny alerts and updates. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
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Quotable
What did Paul Pellitier (a former Principal Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section) think about Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell’s recent “we do not expect companies to aimlessly boil the ocean” speech (see here for the prior post). Pellitier wrote in a guest post on the FCPA Blog:
“Somewhat surprisingly, however, AAG Caldwell seemed to place the blame for the arduousness of government FCPA investigations squarely on companies for “spend[ing] years, and many millions of dollars, investigating potential violations.”
Although AAG Caldwell’s candid remarks provide enough reason to be hopeful, they don’t address critical distinctions between corporate internal investigations and the government’s own overarching criminal investigations that may serve to cause investigatory delays.
As an initial observation, it remains an unavoidable fact that companies simply are not incentivized to incur substantial costs by acting needlessly in the conduct of those internal inquiries. Moreover, while it may be true that, on occasion, a company has “boiled the ocean” in the conduct of an internal investigation, the notion that federal investigators would routinely permit an “aimless” internal inquiry to negatively affect the course or duration of the government’s investigation is, at base, unconvincing.
There is no doubt, however, that, regardless of the level of corporate cooperation, government investigators and prosecutors are not merely museum docents here. As AAG Caldwell pointed out, the government does not (and cannot) sit idly by and rely exclusively on the company’s internal investigation in making its charging decisions, but rather, conducts its own independent inquiry and “pressure tests” the company’s internal investigation. As such, the government plainly is the driver of the investigatory bus.”
As to Pellitier’s comments, it is of course true that “companies simply are not incentivized to incur substantial costs by acting needlessly in the conduct of those internal inquiries.”
Yet it may be true that: (i) FCPA Inc. may be so incentivized; (ii) FCPA Inc. participants are often the go-between between the DOJ/SEC and a company’s board of directors / audit committee; and (iii) few board of directors / audit committees are going to reject FCPA Inc. advice when the issue is a high-profile, sensitive, potentially criminal FCPA matter.
Scrutiny Alerts and Updates
Here is what Brian Robinson (CFO, General Cable Corporation) said on a recent earnings conference call about the company’s FCPA scrutiny.
“I wanted to provide an update regarding the ongoing FCPA-related investigation. The general scope of our internal investigation remains broadly consistent with our past disclosures and we continue to believe, subject to any new developments, that our internal investigation will be concluded or substantially concluded later in this calendar year. As we’ve stated before, once we complete our internal review, we cannot predict how long it will take the SEC or DOJ to conclude their work or what the ultimate outcome may be, including the amount of any fines or penalties we may pay.
We also cannot guarantee that the scope of this ongoing investigation will not change or expand in the future as it unfolds. As we’ve said before, any determination that our operations or activities are not in compliance with existing laws or regulations could result in the imposition of substantial fines, civil and criminal penalties, and equitable remedies including disgorgement and injunctive relief.
In February of this year, based on the analysis completed at that time, with the assistance of our external counsel and forensic accountants, we concluded that we are able to reasonably estimate the amount of profit derived from sales made to the Angolan government owned public utilities that we believe are likely to ultimately be disgorged in connection with our ongoing investigation. As a result, we recorded an estimated charge in the amount of $24 million as an accrual as of December 31, 2014. The accrued amount reflects only an estimate of the Angola related profits reasonably likely to be disgorged and does not include provision for any fines, civil or criminal penalties, or other relief. There has been no change in the amount of accrual since it was put in place in February.”
*****
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. recently disclosed:
“In January 2011, the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC Staff”) informed several financial institutions, including BNY Mellon, that it had commenced an inquiry into certain of their business practices and relationships with sovereign wealth fund clients. In the third quarter of 2014, the SEC Staff issued Wells notices to certain current and former employees of BNY Mellon, informing them that the SEC Staff has made a preliminary determination to recommend enforcement action against them for alleged violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the provision of a limited number of internships to relatives of sovereign wealth fund officials. BNY Mellon received a similar Wells notice in the fourth quarter of 2014. On Jan. 23, 2015, BNY Mellon received an additional subpoena from the SEC expanding the scope of the SEC’s inquiry into the provision of internships and employment opportunities offered to officials and relatives of officials at government-related entities. BNY Mellon has fully cooperated with the SEC Staff’s investigation.”
Speaking of the above disclosure, this World Finance video (7 minutes in length) asks “is bribery part of life on Wall Street?” (Note- challenging enforcement agency interpretations of facts or law (as recently highlighted here) is not lobbying as suggested in the video).
*****
A good weekend to all.
Wall Street Firms Push Back Against FCPA Scrutiny
For the past several years, a number of banks have been under FCPA scrutiny based on alleged hiring practices in China and elsewhere. (See here among other prior posts).
Among the banks under scrutiny are the following: JP Morgan, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sach Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, and UBS AG.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Wall Street banks are embroiled in an intense dispute with the U.S. government over its “aggressive” interpretation of foreign-bribery laws, a flurry of legal wrangling in a probe with broad implications for how corporations do business overseas, according to people familiar with the matter.
The previously unreported campaign by banks goes to the heart of a wide-ranging inquiry into whether they ran afoul of U.S. antibribery laws by giving jobs to relatives of managers of state-owned companies and other well-connected officials, including the kin of high-ranking Chinese government officials known as “princelings,” allegedly to curry favor in getting deals.
In a series of meetings, calls and letters to regulators and federal prosecutors, banks have accused the government of overreaching by threatening to criminalize standard business practices in some countries, according to people close to the firms. The pushback differs from the normal squabbling over settlement terms, in part because the outcome is likely to set a blueprint for future cases, according to people familiar with the matter.
The government maintains its approach, which the banks have privately called “aggressive,” is within the confines of the law.”
According to the article, JP Morgan “is preparing a white paper to submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department, setting out the bank’s concerns about their approach.” The white paper is being written by Mark Mendelsohn.
Mendelsohn’s assignment is most interesting as the former DOJ FCPA Unit Chief describes himself on his law firm bio as the “architect and key enforcement official of DOJ’s modern Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement program.” As highlighted in prior posts here and here, when Mendelsohn left the DOJ in April 2010 others stated as follows.
- “Mr. Mendelsohn has overseen a hot field in prosecution in recent years” and that “it has been up to the Justice Department – and specifically to Mr. Mendelsohn – to interpret the law.”
- “Mark Mendelsohn transformed the FCPA from a legal backwater to a headline practice” and during his “term, no corporations mounted a courtroom defense against FCPA charges; instead all made deals with the DOJ to settle their cases.” “That gave Mendelsohn extraordinary power — in the FCPA realm, he and the DOJ became prosecutor, judge, and jury.”
His own law firm, which is now representing a major Wall Street firm in the midst of FCPA scrutiny, issued a release at the time stating Mendelsohn “built the DOJ’s modern FCPA program.”
In certain respects, the FCPA scrutiny of JP Morgan and other Wall Street banks is a reflection of the DOJ (and SEC’s) modern FCPA enforcement program.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, Bank of New York Mellon Corp. “is expected in coming months to settle an SEC inquiry that includes allegations the firm gave internships to relatives of officials at a Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth fund.”
As I told the Wall Street Journal in the article, in FCPA history only one public company has forced the DOJ to carry its burden of proof as to the elements of an FCPA anti-bribery violation and the government will likely get away with pushing the envelope on the legal boundaries in the hiring probe. When push comes to shove, these banks are not going to risk a criminal indictment to litigate a disputed legal issue.
Chalk it up to another potential example of the “facade of FCPA enforcement.”
Indeed, in many instances of FCPA scrutiny in this new era two distinct questions can be asked.
The first is whether, given the DOJ’s and SEC’s enforcement theories, the conduct at issue can expose a company to FCPA scrutiny and an FCPA enforcement action? The second is whether Congress in passing the FCPA intended to capture the alleged conduct at issue and whether a court would find the alleged conduct to be in violation of the FCPA?
As a practical matter, risk-averse corporations care more about the first question than the second.
However, those who value the rule of law should care more about the second question. As former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rightly noted:
“In an ironic twist, the more that American companies elect to settle and not force the DOJ to defend its aggressive interpretation of the [FCPA], the more aggressive DOJ has become in its interpretation of the law and its prosecution decisions.”
Corporations often complain about the expansive enforcement theories that have come to define this new era of enforcement. However, the business community itself is, at least in part, responsible for the current aggressive FCPA enforcement climate. Indeed, as Homer Moyer, a dean of the FCPA bar rightly observed:
“One reality is the enforcement agencies’ [FCPA] views on issues and enforcement policies, positions on which they are rarely challenged in court. The other is what knowledgeable counsel believe the government could sustain in court, should their interpretations or positions be challenged. The two may not be the same. The operative rules of the game are the agencies’ views unless a company is prepared to go to court or to mount a serious challenge within the agencies.”
Friday Roundup
The FCPA in the hallways, Super Bowl bribery, no FCPA charges, quotable, survey says, FCPA reform advocate nominated to the federal bench, interesting homework assignment, scrutiny alert, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
FCPA in the Hallways
Avon’s FCPA scrutiny brought the FCPA to main street. News Corp.’s and Wal-Mart’s FCPA scrutiny generated world-wide media coverage. Will the FCPA next become the topic of discussion in middle school and high school hallways across America?
According to this TMZ report:
“A Canadian border official has been fired for allegedly accepting a $10,000 bribe in return for allowing members of Justin Bieber’s entourage with criminal records to enter Canada. Bieber’s camp reportedly gave a female officer at the Niagara Falls border thousands of dollars in backstage passes to get members of his posse into the country while he performed. Canada has a strict policy on not allowing people with certain types of criminal records to enter. It’s unclear when the alleged bribes went down … but Justin performed 2 shows in Toronto last year. The accusations surfaced after more of Bieber’s friends allegedly showed up at the border looking for the same special treatment — and the officers on duty blew the whistle. The Canada Border Services agency reportedly circulated an internal memo reminding officers not to take bribes … and to rat out anyone who does.”
In case you are wondering, there have been several FCPA enforcement actions in recent years concerning alleged payments to customs, immigration and other regulatory officials in connection with a business purpose broadly speaking.
Super Bowl Bribery?
Providing money or other things of value to a person or entity to influence the discretionary acts of that person or entity in connection with a business purpose is bribery … is it not?
Yet, according to this Wall Street Journal article, the above may determine which artist receives the coveted Super Bowl half-time performance slot. According to the article, the NFL “has asked artists under consideration for the high-profile gig to pay to play” including whether the artists “would be willing to contribute a portion of their post-Super Bowl tour income to the league, or if they would make some other type of financial contribution, in exchange for the halftime gig.”
According to the article, the NFL’s only goal is to “put on the best possible show.”
No FCPA Charges
It is sometimes perplexing why certain alleged conduct results in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges, whereas other alleged conduct – clearly implicating the FCPA – does not result in FCPA charges.
Case in point, the recent DOJ prosecution of Alisa Bivens, a U.S. citizen and former foreign program director of International Adoption Guides Inc. (IAG – a South Carolina company). (See here for the DOJ release). Bivens recently pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. in violation of 18 U.S.C. 317. As noted in the DOJ release:
“Bivens admitted as part of her plea that she and her co-conspirators submitted fraudulent documents to the State Department to facilitate adoptions of Ethiopian children by U.S. parents from 2006 until 2009. In support of U.S. visa applications for the Ethiopian children, Bivens and others submitted false documentation, including contracts of adoption signed by orphanages that could not properly give the children up for adoption because, for example, the child in question was never cared for or never resided at the orphanage.”
The DOJ release further states:
“In entering her guilty plea, Bivens also admitted that she and others paid bribes to two Ethiopian officials so that those officials would help with the fraudulent adoptions. The first of these two foreign officials, an audiologist and teacher at a government school, accepted money and other valuables in exchange for providing non-public medical information and social history information for potential adoptees to the conspirators. The second foreign official, the head of a regional ministry for women’s and children’s affairs, received money and all-expenses-paid travel in exchange for approving IAG’s applications for intercountry adoptions and for ignoring IAG’s failure to maintain a properly licensed adoption facility.”
Quotable
U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus recently delivered this speech to the APEC Network of Anti-Corruption Authorities and Law Enforcement Agencies. Ambassador Baucus stated:
“The Obama Administration takes a firm stand against American and foreign companies that engage in bribing foreign officials to obtain or retain business. Other economies here do this as well. In the United States, one of the most effective tools we use to combat corruption is enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We pursue corruption at many levels:
- corporations, both big and small;
- everyone from sales agents to CEOs;
- U.S. and foreign companies;
- citizens and foreign nationals; and
- direct payers and intermediaries.
Since 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken in $3.4 billion from criminal fines, penalties and forfeitures. And the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has seized another $1 billion of profits obtained by illegal or unethical acts over the last ten years. As a result, more American companies have changed the way they do business. Companies are now more willing to voluntarily disclose corrupt behavior and report on solicitations for bribes.”
The last sentence of course is debatable.
Even so, what is not debatable is the following from Ambassador Baucus – “we need to adopt international best practices of transparency and rule of law” in the fight against corruption.
U.S. officials preach this virtue abroad, yet the reality is we need to work on these virtues here at home as well.
As to the rule of law, and as noted in this speech by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker who was the keynote speaker at the International Bar Association’s annual conference:
“There is frank recognition that the combination of a weak rule of law and corruption is not only economically debilitating, but threatening the political health of both new and old democracies. I do not exclude the United States. We think of ourselves as exemplars of the rule of law. We are certainly world champions in the extent of legislation and regulation governing bribery, conflicts of interest, procurement procedures, campaign financing, protection of human rights and most of all, transparency. All of these are ingredients of what some think of as the rule of law. But we still face the sad fact that in the United States itself, only a quarter of Americans believe that corruption is not widespread in our country. My feeling is that the impression of serious corruption has increased further, a reflection largely of the concern that campaign financing has come to gravely distort the political process. Should we be satisfied that we live with a really effective rule of law, when the perceived need for heavy campaign spending has come to dominate our political process? We let those financing practices infringe in a very basic way upon the rule of law, with its sense of even-handedness and openness. Does it not breed behaviour that is accomplished by any reasonable definition of corruption?”
Survey Says
PwC’s 2014 State of Compliance Survey asked: “Please select your top 3 areas in terms of current perceived level of risk to your business.” The most popular responses from survey participants were:
- Industry-specific regulations – 31%
- Privacy and confidentiality – 25%
- Bribery/corruption – 22%
FCPA Reform Advocate Nominated to the Federal Bench
Earlier this week, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Haywood Stirling Gilliam, Jr. (Vice-Chair of Covington & Burling’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group) to serve on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
As noted in this previous post, in a 2013 Law360 Q&A Gilliam was asked “what aspects of your practice area are in need of reform and why?” and he stated:
“Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement stands out as an area in need of further reform. Over the past several years, FCPA enforcement has been characterized by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission advancing aggressive enforcement theories, but there have been limited opportunities for courts to scrutinize those theories. Most FCPA enforcement cases end in negotiated resolutions such as deferred prosecution or nonprosecution agreements. In that context, regulators often insist that the settling company or individual accept the government’s expansive theories as a condition of resolving the case. For example, the DOJ has extracted penalties from non-U.S. based, non-U.S. traded companies not covered under the four corners of the statute by asserting broad theories such as aiding and abetting or conspiracy — even when the foreign entity has not taken any action in the U.S. As a practical matter, that could be a hard case to prove at trial — but the government almost never has to. The result of this trend has been to enshrine the government’s aggressive enforcement positions as quasi-precedent: The law means what the DOJ and SEC say it means, and defendants (especially publicly traded companies) seldom have a realistic opportunity to push back in court, given the financial and practical costs of fighting a contested enforcement action. Relatively recently, district courts have begun to weigh in on these theories, which is a positive development, but there still is a dearth of FCPA case law as compared to other areas of criminal law. This absence of settled law makes it challenging for companies to decide how to handle thorny FCPA compliance issues. For example, companies routinely face a difficult choice in deciding whether to self-report potential violations to the government, as opposed to thoroughly investigating and remediating the issues internally. While regulators insist that they will give “meaningful credit” to companies that self-report, the tangible benefits of doing so are far from clear. The recent FCPA resource guide issued by the DOJ and SEC says that the agencies place a “high premium” on self-reporting, but does not give concrete guidance as to how the government weighs self-reporting in deciding whether to charge a case, as opposed to offering a deferred prosecution or nonprosecution agreement, or declining the case outright. While the resource guide is a start, companies and their counsel would benefit from more specific guidance when they are weighing the potential, but uncertain, benefits of disclosure against the cost and distraction that can result from voluntarily handing the government a case that otherwise might not have come to its attention.”
Interesting Homework Assignment
Professors are supposed to give homework, not receive homework.
Yet, as highlighted in this Corporate Crime Reporter article, Professor Brandon Garrett (UVA) recently received a homework assignment from a federal court judge.
The assignment: “to appear in [a] case as an amicus curiae for the limited purpose of providing the Court with advocacy on questions regarding the scope of the Court’s authority, if any, to consider the fairness and reasonableness of a deferred prosecution in deciding whether to accept or reject such an agreement.”
As noted in the Corporate Crime Reporter article, the DPA is between the DOJ and Saena Tech, a defense contractor and grew out of a domestic bribery investigation.
To say the least, I look forward to reviewing Professor Garrett’s homework and so should you.
Scrutiny Alerts
Och-Ziff
Bloomberg goes in-depth in this article “The Hedge Fund and the Despot” concerning Och-Ziff’s relationships in Zimbabwe and the company’s overall scrutiny.
Barclays
Previous posts (here) have detailed Barclay’s scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic regarding its business relationships with various Middle Eastern investors.
Reuters reports
“Britain’s fraud prosecutor could decide as soon as next month whether to charge former Barclays executives over undisclosed payments the bank made to Qatari investors in 2008.”
According to the article, “U.S. authorities are also investigating the same Barclays’ Qatari commercial agreements and whether third-party relationships breached anti-bribery rules.”
Reading Stack
From Bloomberg, an in-depth look at the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and its relationships with various companies in the financial services industry which has resulted in FCPA scrutiny.
Informative article here titled “Land of Confusion: Insurance Coverage for Pre-Suit FCPA Investigation Costs Under D&O Liability Policies.”
An interesting front-page read here from the Wall Street Journal regarding China’s anti-corruption crackdown.
*****
A good weekend to all.