Invoice Schemes
“Pots of money” need to be created within a business organization to fund a bribery scheme. In the Quad/Graphics enforcement action, a “pot of money” was created through an invoicing scheme as the SEC found in connection with “bribery to secure sales in Peru” that “improper payments were made through four purported third party vendors, which were sham companies owned by the same individual (“Sham Vendors”).
Issues To Consider From The Quad/Graphics Enforcement Action
This previous post highlighted the SEC’s recent $10 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Quad/Graphics and this post continues the analysis by highlighting additional issues to consider.
Timeline
As highlighted in this prior post, Quad voluntarily disclosed in April 2016. Thus, from start to finish, the company’s FCPA scrutiny lasted approximately 3.5 years. While this is slightly below the average length of time FCPA scrutiny tends to last in the current era (see here), 3.5 years is still too long for a company that voluntarily disclosed and cooperates to be under FCPA scrutiny.