This recent post summarized the decision by a judge to deny Roger Ng’s (a former Goldman Sachs executive) motion to dismiss including how the judge concluded that the FCPA’s internal controls provisions can be implicated even in transactions in which an issuer does not use its own assets to pay an alleged bribe.

In his motion to dismiss, Ng also pointed to certain aspects of the deferred prosecution agreement between the DOJ and Goldman (see here in for the prior post) as compromising his defense. However, in her decision, U.S. District Court Judge Margo Brodie (E.D.N.Y) also denied Ng’s motion on these grounds.

Given that the motion to dismiss stage is deferential to the prosecution, Judge Brodie’s decision on these issues was not a huge surprise.

Nevertheless, these aspects of Judge Brodie’s decision are worthy of exploring because various aspects of corporate DPAs (or NPAs) in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act context are rarely litigated because: (1) the DOJ does not charge individuals in connection with approximately 75% of corporate actions; and (2) even in those instances in which the DOJ does charge an individual in connection with a corporate action, the individual frequently pleads guilty without mounting a defense.

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