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Potpourri

Potpourri

A bounty and a disclosure.

Bounty

Earlier this week the SEC released this order determining that a whistleblower is to receive approximately $3.5 million. According to the order: “Claimant alerted Commission staff of alleged securities laws violations, prompting Enforcement staff to expand an existing investigation into an additional geographic area. Claimant, a foreign national, also provided significant assistance to Commission staff by traveling to meet in person with staff, identifying an important witness, and providing multiple supplemental submissions that assisted the Commission in bringing the charges in the Covered Action.”

Pursuant to relevant law, the SEC protects the confidentiality of whistleblowers and does not disclose any information that could reveal a whistleblower’s identity. However, attorneys Andy Rickman and Christopher Connors confirmed that they represented the individual and that the award related to the Juniper FCPA enforcement action.

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I’m Not Sure Why A Law Firm Actively Marketed This “Favorable” Settlement

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As highlighted in prior posts here and here, the recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Juniper Networks was an $11.7 million joke.

For starters, the company was under FCPA scrutiny for an unconscionable six years, the conduct at issue was beyond any conceivable statute of limitations, the SEC invoked an internal controls standard of liability that does not even exist in the FCPA, the company agreed to pay $5.2 million in disgorgement even though the SEC did not allege or find any violations of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, and a fair read of the SEC’s allegations is that the parent company was a victim of subsidiary employee conduct.

In short, if I was with the law firm representing Juniper Networks in connection with this enforcement action, I certainly would not actively market my participation in this joke of an enforcement action and would most certainly not call it a “favorable” settlement for my client. Yet that is exactly what the law firm representing Juniper Networks did with this release.

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Issues To Consider From The Juniper Networks Enforcement Action

Issues

This prior post highlighted the SEC’s $11.7 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Juniper Networks. This post continues the analysis by highlighting additional issues to consider.

Timeline

As highlighted in this prior post, Juniper Networks disclosed its FCPA scrutiny in mid-2013. Thus, from start to finish the company’s FCPA scrutiny lasted an unconscionable six years.

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Six Years After Juniper Networks Disclosed FCPA Scrutiny, It Resolves A $11.7 Million Joke Of An Enforcement Action Based On Russia And China Subsidiary Conduct

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As highlighted in this previous post, in mid-2013 Juniper Networks disclosed that it was under FCPA scrutiny. Over six years later, the SEC announced yesterday that the company agreed to pay approximately $11.7 million to resolve the scrutiny.

As highlighted below, the enforcement action was based on the conduct of Russia and China subsidiary employees. In Russia, certain sales employees of the Russian representative office of Juniper’s subsidiary secretly agreed with third party channel partners to provide discounts to customers that were parked in off-book funds some of which were used to pay for customer trips, including trips for government officials, some of which were predominately leisure in nature. In China, certain sales employees of Juniper’s Chinese subsidiaries falsified trip and meeting agendas for customer events in seeking approval from Juniper’s Legal Department.

Based on the conduct alleged in the enforcement action (which is beyond any conceivable statute of limitations) as well as actual FCPA legal authority, the enforcement action is a $11.7 million joke.

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Friday Roundup

Roundup

DOJ’s year in review, ripple, scrutiny alerts and updates, simply false, and amusing. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

DOJ’s Year In Review

The DOJ Fraud Section recently released its year in review. According to the document, “the FCPA Unit has 32 prosecutors.” When reviewing the statistics in the document keep in mind that the FCPA Unit “investigates and prosecutes cases under the FCPA and related statutes.” In other words, the statistics include non-FCPA matters such as when the DOJ charges or prosecutes alleged “foreign officials” for money laundering and related offenses.

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