This recent post highlighted the $6.5 million enforcement action against 3M based on findings that the company was duped by certain China subsidiary employees.
This recent post discussed how the type of conduct at issue in the 3M enforcement action would seem to fit squarely within prior SEC policy for when an enforcement action would not be warranted.
This post highlights additional issues to consider from the enforcement action.
Timeline
The SEC announced today that 3M resolved a $6.5 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement.
The basics are as follows.
Approximately 6-10 years ago, a former Marketing Manager of a 3M China-based subsidiary “secretly” provided “tourism activities” for Chinese health care officials.
The Marketing Manager “would create a travel itinerary that included various legitimate business, training and marketing activities for submission to 3M-China’s compliance personnel for approval,” however there were “alternate itineraries” that “consisted of various tourism activities at or near the location of the educational events.”
There is no suggestion that anyone at 3M headquarters knew of or approved of the conduct. Indeed, subsidiary employees, among other things, “falsified internal compliance documents that affirmatively denied and/or omitted mention of the Tourism Activities that were planned as part of the overseas trip.”
It is one of the more dubious FCPA enforcement theories there is. It has never been subjected to judicial scrutiny. It is a relatively new enforcement theory when one considers that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was enacted in 1977. It is an enforcement theory that has been used 35 times since introduced to the FCPA context in 2002 and thus is one of the more obvious reasons for the general increase in FCPA enforcement in the modern era.
It is the enforcement theory that employees (such as physicians, nurses, mid-wives, lab personnel, etc.) of certain foreign health care systems are “foreign officials” under the FCPA and thus occupy a status akin to a President or Prime Minister.
This post traces the origins and prominence of this theory, contains comments from the former DOJ FCPA enforcement attorney who came up with this theory, and highlights a data point relevant to the legitimacy and validity of this theory.
This previous post highlighted the recent net $59 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Stericycle (an Illinois based medical waste disposal company) for conduct in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
Portions of the alleged conduct were egregious in that an executive of the company’s Latin America division orchestrated the bribery schemes and others associated with the company used “spreadsheets to track the bribe payments.”
Nevertheless, there are several legal and policy issues to consider from the enforcement action.
Timeline
As highlighted in this post, Stericycle disclosed its FCPA scrutiny in mid-2017.
Stericycle (an Illinois based medical waste disposal company) has been under FCPA scrutiny since mid-2017 (See here).
As highlighted here, approximately two months ago the company disclosed that it had “reached agreements in principle with the DOJ and SEC.” Specifically, Stericycle disclosed:
Yesterday, the DOJ and SEC announced (here and here) a parallel FCPA enforcement action against Stericycle.
The DOJ enforcement action involved this criminal information charging Stericycle with two counts of conspiracy to violate (1) the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, and (2) the FCPA’s books and records provision. The criminal charges were resolved via this deferred prosecution agreement pursuant to which Stericycle agreed to pay a net $35 million criminal penalty.
The SEC enforcement action involved this administrative order finding that Stericycle violated the FCPA’s anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions pursuant to which the company agreed to pay a net approximate $24 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest.
