Lawrence Hoskins is a United Kingdom citizen who lived and worked his entire life in the U.K. with the exception of a 35 month period between 2001 and 2004 during which he worked for Alstom in France. In 2004, he resigned from his job at Alstom to resume his career in the U.K. and retired in 2010. In April 2014 Hoskins and his wife disembarked from a ferry in the U.S. Virgin Islands en route to Dallas, Texas when he was arrested by U.S. authorities for an alleged bribery scheme dating back to his time at Alstom.
So began the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act journey of Lawrence Hoskins.
As highlighted in this previous post, Hoskins was criminally charged in connection with the same Indonesian power plant project that also resulted in criminal charges against other individuals associated with Alstom – Frederic Pierucci, David Rothschild, and William Pomponi.
Pierucci, Rothschild and Pomponi have all pleaded guilty. However Hoskins is fighting the criminal charges filed against him and last week he filed a motion to dismiss.
The Memorandum in Support of the Motion to Dismiss states, in pertinent part, as follows.
“Resting as it does, upon an infirm foundation of aged allegations, overly expansive applications of law, and novel theories of criminal liability, the Indictment in this case suffers from numerous and fatal defects of law and logic. Among other things, it charges stale and time-barred conduct that occurred more than a decade ago; it asserts violations of U.S. law by a British citizen who never stepped foot on U.S. soil during the relevant time period; and, it distorts the definition of the time-worn legal concept of agency beyond recognition. In other words, the Indictment marks an excessive and improper exercise of executive authority. This is an Indictment that never should have been brought.
The Indictment seeks to hold Lawrence Hoskins, a retired 63-year-old British citizen, responsible for his alleged conduct that occurred—outside the United States more than ten years ago—while he was working in Paris at Alstom Holdings, SA (―Alstom‖), the parent company of the French conglomerate. The Indictment asserts that Mr. Hoskins, in his capacity as a Senior Vice-President of the Alstom parent company, approved and authorized the retention and compensation of two consultants, knowing that they would bribe Indonesian officials to help a consortium (including Alstom and one of its U.S. subsidiaries) obtain a contract to construct a power plant in Indonesia. According to the Indictment, Mr. Hoskins‘s limited, dated, and purely extraterritorial conduct subjects him to liability for two conspiracies and a total of ten substantive violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (―FCPA‖) and United States‘ money-laundering statutes. These charges all fail.
First, the Indictment is time-barred. Mr. Hoskins resigned from Alstom ten years ago, in August 2004, after 35 months of employment with the parent company and, when he did so, he withdrew from any alleged conspiracy operating therein. Second Circuit precedent makes clear that resignation from a business constitutes withdrawal from any criminal conduct operating within that entity if, following resignation, there is no promotion of or benefit received from the alleged illegal activity. Mr. Hoskins passes the Second Circuit‘s test with ease. After he resigned from Alstom, he immediately moved from Paris back to his home in England and started a new job, at a new company, in a new industry. He had no contact with, and received nothing from, any of his alleged co-conspirators. He also had no involvement with criminal conduct of any kind. To the point, the last act attributable to Mr. Hoskins in the Indictment occurred in March 2004, and the wire transfers that constitute the FCPA and money-laundering offenses all occurred long thereafter, between November 2005 and October 2009. Thus, Mr. Hoskins successfully withdrew from any alleged criminal conduct upon his resignation from Alstom. As such, all of the charges in the Indictment are time-barred and should be dismissed.
Second, the FCPA charges are facially defective. The Indictment alleges that Mr. Hoskins was an ―agent of a domestic concern,‖ to wit, an agent of Alstom‘s U.S. subsidiary. While it is black letter law that the fundamental characteristic of agency is control, the supporting factual allegations in the Indictment make plain that Mr. Hoskins was in no way under the control of the U.S. subsidiary. Indeed, much to the contrary, the Indictment demonstrates that Mr. Hoskins was ―approving‖ and ―authorizing‖ certain requests from employees of subsidiary companies ―in his capacity‖ as an executive of the Alstom parent company. Thus, because the allegations in the Indictment describe conduct bearing no semblance to an agency relationship, the FCPA-related charges are facially defective and should be dismissed.
Third, the Indictment‘s use of the term ―agent‖ is so counter-intuitive to the common understanding of that phrase that its application to Mr. Hoskins‘s relationship with the U.S. subsidiary renders the FCPA unconstitutionally vague as applied. Such a construction of the term ―agent‖ could not have provided Mr. Hoskins with fair warning that his alleged conduct—authorizing and approving matters at the request of employees of subsidiaries in his oversight capacity at the parent company—could expose him to criminal liability. As such, the FCPA charges are also constitutionally flawed and should be dismissed.
Fourth, the FCPA charges do not apply to Mr. Hoskins‘s purely extraterritorial conduct. Though Congress directed certain provisions of the FCPA to have extraterritorial effect, the subsection of the FCPA charged in the Indictment was not included in any such direction. Accordingly, the presumption against extraterritoriality applies. Thus, because all of Mr. Hoskins‘s alleged conduct occurred outside of the United States in the territory of a foreign sovereign, the substantive FCPA charges fail and should be dismissed.
Fifth, given the pronounced defects with the Indictment‘s FCPA charges, any theory of liability premised upon conspiracy and/or aiding and abetting also necessarily fail. Applicable Supreme Court precedent holds that when Congress affirmatively chooses to exclude a certain class of individuals from liability under a criminal statute, the government cannot circumvent that intent by alleging conspiracy. Moreover, federal courts have repeatedly held that ancillary offenses, including aiding and abetting and conspiracy, are only deemed to confer extraterritorial jurisdiction to the extent of the offenses underlying them. For these reasons, the conspiracy and aiding and abetting theories advanced in the Indictment cannot stand once the underlying FCPA charges fail.
Finally, the money-laundering charges are improperly venued in the District of Connecticut. The venue provision of the money-laundering statute establishes that venue lies only where the predicate money laundering transaction was ―conducted. The Indictment makes clear that the allegedly offending transfers were initiated from Maryland. As such, the District of Maryland is the only proper venue for the money-laundering charges, and they should be dismissed.
For the reasons described above and explained below, all of the charges should be dismissed. Mr. Hoskins never should have been charged on such old, infirm, and overextended allegations and legal theories. He should be freed to resume his life in England.”
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Hoskins is represented by Christopher Morvillo (Clifford Chance) and Brian Spears (Brian Spears LLC). Both were previously AUSAs at the DOJ.
