Same General Script, As DOJ Charges Individual In Connection With Alleged Bribes In Venezuela
You have likely read the script many times in the last several years.
An individual associated with small privately-held companies does business in Venezuela and paid alleged bribes (and/or laundered money) in connection with the bribery scheme.
The script repeated itself yesterday as the DOJ announced that Naman Wakil (pictured), a Syrian national and U.S. lawful permanent resident, was “arrested in Miami on charges related to his alleged role in a scheme to bribe Venezuelan officials and launder funds to obtain contracts from Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled energy company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), and Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled food company that purchased food for Venezuela, Corporación de Abastecimiento y Servicios Agrícola (CASA).”
Former Glencore Trader Pleads Guilty To FCPA And Related Offense
As highlighted in this prior post, for approximately two years Glencore (a commodities company incorporated in the United Kingdom and headquartered in Switzerland with common stock that trades on the New York based over-the-counter market) has been under scrutiny for conduct in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Venezuela (as well as perhaps other countries).
Earlier this week Anthony Stimler pleaded guilty to FCPA and money laundering offenses. Stimler is described as a United Kingdom citizen and resident who was a trader at a Glencore subsidiary who worked on the West Africa desk from in or around 2002 until in or around 2009 and then again from in or around June 2011 until in or around August 2019. According to the DOJ “In that role, Stimler had responsibility for crude oil purchases from, among other places, Nigeria, and acted on behalf of Company 1 [Glencore] in procuring crude oil from Nigeria.”
In summary fashion, the criminal information alleges:
FCPA Flash Podcast – A Conversation With Douglas Zolkind Regarding DOJ FCPA Issues
The FCPA Flash podcast provides in an audio format the same fresh, candid, and informed commentary about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related topics as readers have come to expect from written posts on FCPA Professor.
This FCPA Flash podcast episode is a conversation with Douglas Zolkind. Zolkind recently joined the New York office of Debevoise & Plimpton after serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Among the cases he prosecuted were FCPA trial convictions involving Ng Lap Seng and Patrick Ho. During the podcast, Zolkind: (i) shares his experiences trying FCPA cases including the difference between “FCPA violations” and “FCPA violations that can be proven at trial”; (ii) discusses underappreciated aspects of DOJ FCPA enforcement; (iii) opines whether the government is vulnerable on some of its FCPA enforcement theories; and (iv) suggests a change to FCPA enforcement.
An Episode Of White Collar Briefly
Today’s post is a recent episode of White Collar Briefly, a podcast sponsored by Perkins Coie and co-sponsored by the ABA Global Anti-Corruption Corruption.
During the podcast, I had the pleasure to visit with Chelsea Curfman and Markus Funk and talked about the following issues: my professional background; the evolution of my work; FCPA Inc.; the revolving door between the DOJ and SEC and private FCPA practice; what the end game of FCPA enforcement is and what does success actually mean; the downside of other countries modeling enforcement of their FCPA-like laws on U.S. FCPA enforcement; the lack of individual enforcement actions in connection with most corporate enforcement actions; whether FCPA enforcement will change in a Biden administration; voluntary disclosure; and whether there are any recent trends in FCPA enforcement.
Slumbering Individual FCPA Enforcement Actions
Most in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act space learn when the DOJ announces criminal FCPA charges against individuals. Thereafter, the tendency (including myself) is to sort of forget about many of the individual cases.
However, recently I examined the dockets for all individuals criminally charged with FCPA offenses since January 1, 2017 and was surprised to learn that a meaningful percentage of these cases are slumbering with no substantive activity recorded in quite some time.
Thus, when viewing DOJ FCPA individual enforcement action statistics it is important to keep in mind that many of these cases are slumbering and are not being actively prosecuted.