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Issues To Consider From The Halliburton Enforcement Action

By on August 2, 2017 in Gray Cloud, Halliburton, Kokesh, Non-Bribery Charged Disgorgement, Trade Barriers and Distortions, Uncategorized
Issues

This prior post went in-depth into last week’s $29.2 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Halliburton and this post continues the analysis by highlighting additional issues to consider.

Timeline

Halliburton disclosed to the DOJ / SEC in December 2010 or perhaps early 2011. Regardless of the precise date, Halliburton’s FCPA scrutiny lasted approximately 6.5 years.

If the SEC wants the public to have confidence in its FCPA enforcement program, it must resolve instances of FCPA scrutiny much quicker. Having FCPA scrutiny linger for 6.5 years is inexcusable particularly since Halliburton, in the words of the SEC, “[cooperated] including making foreign witnesses available, compiling financial data and analysis relating to the transactions at issue, and making substantive presentations on key topics at the staff’s request.”

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Halliburton Joins FCPA Repeat Offender Club As The SEC Also Finds That A Former VP Violated The FCPA

By on July 28, 2017 in 2017 Enforcement Actions, Angola, Halliburton, Individual Enforcement Action, Jeannot Lorenz, Monitor, Oil and Gas Industry, Repeat Offenders, SEC Enforcement Action, Trade Barriers and Distortions, Uncategorized
halliburton

In 2009, Halliburton Company, KBR Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton during the relevant time period) and Kellogg, Brown & Root, LLC (a wholly-owned subsidiary of KBR) resolved parallel DOJ and SEC Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions in connection with a bribery scheme involving a $6 billion liquefied natural gas plant on Bonny Island, Nigeria. (See here and here).

The combined $579 million settlement amount (DOJ – $402 million / SEC $177 million) remains the third largest FCPA settlement of all-time. The SEC’s resolution contained the perfunctory condition of permanently enjoining Halliburton from violating the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions.

However, yesterday Halliburton joined the ever-increasing (see here and here for recent posts) FCPA repeat offender club as the SEC announced an FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in Angola. Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings in this administrative order that it violated the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions, Halliburton agreed to pay $29.2 million. In the same order, the SEC also found that Jeannot Lorenz (Halliburton’s former vice president) causing the company’s violations, circumvented internal accounting controls, and falsified books and records. Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, Lorenz agreed to pay a $75,000 penalty.

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Halliburton Poised To Join The FCPA Repeat Offender Club

By on February 8, 2017 in Halliburton
halliburton

In 2009, Halliburton Company, KBR Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton during the relevant time period) and Kellogg, Brown & Root, LLC (a wholly-owned subsidiary of KBR) resolved parallel DOJ and SEC Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions in connection with a bribery scheme involving a $6 billion liquefied natural gas plant on Bonny Island, Nigeria. (See here and here).

The combined $579 million settlement amount (DOJ – $402 million / SEC $177 million) remains the third largest FCPA settlement of all-time. The SEC’s resolution contained the perfunctory condition of permanently enjoining Halliburton from violating the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions.

However, Halliburton is poised to join the ever-increasing (see here and here for recent posts) FCPA repeat offender club.

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Nice Pay Day, But What Did You Accomplish?

By on September 20, 2012 in FCPA Inc., Halliburton, Johnson and Johnson, Related Civil Litigation

When I published “The Facade of FCPA Enforcement” in 2010 (see here) the trend of FCPA-inspired tag-a-long private civil suits was in its early stages.  Thus, the section of my article – why the facade of FCPA enforcement matters – did not include discussion of such suits.

Now that the trend is clear, add FCPA-inspired private civil suits to the list of reasons why the facade of FCPA enforcement matters.

The game is very predictable.  In the days and weeks following an FCPA enforcement action, or even a company disclosing or otherwise being the subject of FCPA scrutiny, the suits and/or “investigations” by plaintiffs firm will start to mount

In this prior post, I asked whether FCPA-inspired civil suits have a purpose or a parasitic.  I stated that when a company’s FCPA violations are found to be condoned or encouraged by the board or executive officers, such plaintiff causes of action would seem to be warranted.  But these situations are rare in FCPA enforcement actions.  This prior post detailed June 2011 Congressional testimony on behalf of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform that touched upon FCPA-civil litigation and I generally agree with the criticisms made of this “piggyback-litigation phenomenon.”

Several prior posts (here and here) profile how such derivative claims seldom, if ever, get past the motion to dismiss stage.  Yet, several companies make the business judgment to  settle such claims for what amounts to nuisance value for the company, but which represents a handsome pay day for plaintiff’s counsel for doing and accomplishing next to nothing.

Two recent Foreicgn Corrupt Practices Act related civil settlements prove this point.

In July, Halliburton announced here that a Texas state court issued an order preliminarily approving the proposed settlement of a derivative claim concerning a variety of misconduct, including Bonny Island, Nigeria conduct giving rise to the previous FCPA enforcement action against Halliburton and its related entities.

Pursuant to the proposed settlement, within 90 days of a final settlement date, Halliburton’s board agreed to implement various corporate governance and internal control revisions.  The items most related to FCPA compliance should not be hard to accomplish because pursuant to the 2009 FCPA DOJ/SEC settlement, Halliburton already was under an existing obligation, including through engagement of a compliance monitor, to implement a host of FCPA related compliance enhancements.

Yet pursuant to the proposed settlement agreement, for its innovative work (that is my term), Plaintiffs’ counsel in the derivative action will seek approval of its fees and expenses not to exceed $7 million and Halliburton will not oppose such fees and will pay them through its insurance carriers.

Likewise, Johnson & Johnson recently announced (here) a proposed settlement of a derivative claim concerning a variety of misconduct, including the conduct giving rise to its 2011 FCPA enforcement action.  As detailed in this prior post, pursuant to the settlement via a DPA, the company is already subject to enhanced compliance obligations related to the FCPA.  The prior post noted that such enhanced compliance obligations were unusual and surprising given the DOJ’s conclusion that J&J already generally had “effective” policies and procedures.  In the words of the DOJ “J&J had a pre-existing compliance and ethics program that was effective and the majority of problematic operations globally resulted from insufficient implementation of the J&J compliance and ethics program in acquired companies.”

Yet, along comes the Plaintiffs’ firms with a derivative action and pursuant to the settlement, J&J has agreed to reimburse Plaintiffs’ counsel in an amount not exceeding $10 million and to pay approximately $450,000 in its expenses.

Like many things in this new era of FCPA enforcement, FCPA-civil related suits have, in many cases, spiraled out of control.  Yet with many, including now Plaintiffs firms, with a vested financial interest in seeing the status quo prevail, it is doubtful any meaningful change is on the horizon.

Yet the question can be asked, do FCPA civil-related suits accomplish anything?  Do such suits serve a purpose or are they parasitic?  Is this another reason why the “facade” of FCPA enforcement matters.

Potpourri

By on July 30, 2012 in Angola, Barclays, Declination Decisions, Financial Services Industry, Halliburton, Industry Sweeps, Iraq, Qatar, Retail Industry, Sovereign Wealth Funds, W.W. Grainger, Wal-Mart

Retail Industry Sweep

This previous post discussed the Wal-Mart effect, how Wal-Mart is clearly not the only company subject to the FCPA that needs licenses, permits and the like when doing business in Mexico, and that it is likely that Wal-Mart’s potential FCPA exposure has caused sleepless nights for many company executives doing business in Mexico and the general region.

Sure enough.

Aruna Viswanatha reports in this Reuters story that “retailers have been reviewing their international operations in light of a bribery scandal at Wal-Mart’s operations in Mexico that is the subject of investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.”  According to the story, “other retail companies have also since reported to U.S. agencies suspicions of their own potential violations, which in turn has the Justice Department and SEC considering a sweep of the entire industry.”  For more on industry sweeps, see this previous post.

Barclays Dealings With Sovereign-Wealth Funds Scrutinized

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday (here) that Barclays PLC’s “chief financial officer is under investigation by British authorities related to the bank’s 2008 fundraising activities with Middle Eastern investors.”  According to the story, the “probe is focused at least in part on how Barclays wooed Qatar’s sovereign-wealth fund to pump billions of pounds into the bank as the financial crisis intensified.”  According to this Wall Street Journal article, Barclays previously disclosed “£240 million of payments made to Qatar Holding and Abu Dhabi’s Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan related to its £7.3 billion capital raise in 2008.”

Barclays has ADRs traded on the New York Stock Exchange and, according to the article, the SEC “is aware of the probe” and will be updated on its progress.  As the article notes, the SEC is currently conducting an expansive investigation of various financial institutions concerning relationships with sovereign-wealth funds.

Halliburton’s Latest Disclosure

Halliburton previously disclosed potential FCPA issues concerning the use of an Angolan vendor.  Last week in this quarterly report, the company provided an update on that investigation as well as new investigations concerning additional conduct in Angola as well as Iraq.  The disclosure states as follows.

“We are conducting internal investigations of certain areas of our operations in Angola and Iraq, focusing on compliance with certain company policies, including our Code of Business Conduct (COBC), and the FCPA and other applicable laws. In December 2010, we received an anonymous e-mail alleging that certain current and former personnel violated our COBC and the FCPA, principally through the use of an Angolan vendor. The e-mail also alleges conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and the failure to act on alleged violations of our COBC and the FCPA. We contacted the DOJ to advise them that we were initiating an internal investigation. Since the third quarter of 2011, we have been participating in meetings with the DOJ and the SEC to brief them on the status of our investigation and have been producing documents to them both voluntarily and as a result of SEC subpoenas to the company and certain of our current and former officers and employees. During the second quarter of 2012, in connection with a meeting with the DOJ and the SEC regarding the above investigation, we advised the DOJ and the SEC that we were initiating unrelated, internal investigations into payments made to a third-party agent relating to certain customs matters in Angola and to third-party agents relating to certain customs and visa matters in Iraq. We expect to continue to have discussions with the DOJ and the SEC regarding the Angola and Iraq matters described above and have indicated that we would further update them as our investigations progress. We have engaged outside counsel and independent forensic accountants to assist us with the investigations. We intend to continue to cooperate with the DOJ’s and the SEC’s inquiries and requests in these investigations. Because these investigations are ongoing, we cannot predict their outcome or the consequences thereof.”

In 2009, Halliburton and related entities settled DOJ and SEC FCPA enforcement actions concerning Bonny Island, Nigeria conduct by agreeing to pay $579 million in combined fines and penalties.  See here and here.  Pursuant to the SEC settlement, Halliburton is permanently enjoined from violating the FCPA’s books and records and internal control provisions.

W.W. Grainger Updates Its Disclosure

This previous post discussed W.W. Grainger’s February disclosure concerning an investigation that sales employees of a China subsidiary may have provided prepaid gift cards to certain customers.  As noted by Chris Matthews in this recent Wall Street Journal Corruption Currents post, the company in a recent SEC filing stated as follows.

“The results of the investigation, which have been submitted to the DOJ and the SEC, did not substantiate initial information suggesting significant use of gift cards for improper purposes. The Company cannot predict at this time whether any regulatory action may be taken or any other potential consequences may result from this matter.”

The Corruption Currents post contains a quote from Grainger spokeswoman as follows.  “We conducted a very thorough investigation, and based on our findings we do not believe this is a material issue.  We have submitted our findings to the DOJ and the SEC and we are in conversations with them regarding the conclusion of this matter.”

Contrary to the Corruption Currents headline “W.W. Grainger’s FCPA Probe Finds No Wrongdoing” the disclosure is qualified by the term “significant” use of gift cards for improper purposes and the quote from the company representative is qualified by the term “material” issue.  Very few FCPA issues in multinational companies rise to the level of quantitative materiality – even if the SEC takes the view that all payments in violation of the FCPA are qualitatively material.

As noted in this previous post concerning Congressional interest in DOJ FCPA declination decisions, the DOJ has stated that it “has declined to prosecute corporate entities in several cases based on particular facts and circumstances presented in those matters” including the following:  “a single employee, and no other employee, was involved in the provision of improper payments; and the improper payments involved minimal funds compared to the overall business revenues.”

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