FCPA Flash – A Conversation With Hannibal Kemerer Regarding The Senate’s 2010 FCPA Hearing And What Has Been Accomplished
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 episode is a conversation with Hannibal Kemerer (Squire Patton Boggs). As former chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Drugs Subcommittee, Kemerer was the lead lawyer for Senator Arlen Specter and has unique insight into why Senator Specter held an FCPA oversight hearing in November 2010 (see here for the hearing transcript, here for the video). During the podcast, Kemerer discusses why Senator Specter held the hearing, what Senator Specter hoped to accomplish in the hearing, and whether the goals of the hearing were actually accomplished. Now in private practice, Kemerer also discusses the difference between approaching FCPA issues from a a private practitioner standpoint compared to a public policy standpoint.
Hail To The Chief
Today is Presidents’ Day.
This post highlights the roles of the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and William Clinton administrations in enactment and subsequent development of FCPA legal authority.
The article “The Story of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” also contains a detailed overview of the roles of the Ford and Carter administrations.
The Difficulty of Reconciling Existing Legal Authority And Even Enforcement Agency Guidance With Certain FCPA Books And Records And Internal Controls Enforcement Actions
This recent FCPA Flash podcast episode focused on the SEC’s “unlawful” enforcement, in certain instances, of the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions.
Off-the-rails SEC FCPA enforcement is a topic frequently discussed on these pages (see here among numerous other posts) and sometimes it is important to take a step back and review actual legal authority, as well as even prior enforcement agency guidance, relevant to the books and records and internal controls provisions.
Upon reviewing the below information, ask yourself whether it is possible to reconcile this legal authority and other sources of information with enforcement theories advanced in certain FCPA enforcement actions.
The FCPA Turns 40
Today our favorite statute, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, turns 40.
During this 40th anniversary year, posts will be published regarding various aspects of the FCPA at 40. For posts already published, see here, here and here.
If you have some unique and candid thoughts about the FCPA at 40, please consider submitting a guest post for publication consideration.
President Jimmy Carter’s December 20, 1977 signing statement stated in full as follows.
Selfish Foreign Policy Reasons, Not Altruism, Is Why Congress Enacted The FCPA In 1977
As the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act nears its 40th anniversary, it is perhaps neither here nor there 40 years later whether Congress in enacting the law was motivated by altruistic, do-good intentions or selfish, foreign policy goals.
But then again, it is important not to reinvent history or look at historical conduct through rose-colored glasses. Indeed, there are numerous accounts of history that ignore what really happened in favor of accounts that sound better.