Friday Roundup
Motion to dismiss denied, scrutiny alert, guilty plea, reverse, FCPA resolution template, perplexing, funny, and fake news. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Motion to Dismiss Denied
As highlighted in this prior post, in November 2017 the DOJ announced that Chi Ping Patrick Ho (of Hong Kong, China) and Cheikh Gadio (of Senegal) were criminally charged with conspiring to violate the FCPA, violating the FCPA, conspiring to commit international money laundering, and committing international money laundering.
Friday Roundup
Scrutiny alert, novice FCPA commentary matters, additional charges, survey says, across the pond, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Scrutiny Alert
Some companies disclose Foreign Corrupt Practices Act very early and then update the disclosure for years. Other companies have different disclosure practices. Global asset management firm Legg Mason Inc. (a company that has not previously disclosed FCPA scrutiny) recently disclosed:
Why Does The Media Have Such Difficulty Accurately Describing The FCPA?
Call me old-fashioned, but when paid journalists write about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act there is a duty to get things right. A duty to conduct basic research and verify or confirm the truth of the matter asserted.
FCPA Professor has chronicled for years numerous “not so finest FCPA moments” of the media (see here, here, here, here and here) and the latest is courtesy of this Newsweek article.
If the definition of fake news includes published material with objectively false information, then portions of the Newsweek article is fake news. This post is particularly timely following DOJ Compliance Counsel Hui Chen recently calling out certain compliance commentary for its lack of precision and intellectual rigor and her call for a #precisionmatters hashtag on social media.
Wal-Mart’s FCPA Scrutiny DID NOT Begin With The April 2012 NY Times Article
If you follow media reporting (and certain FCPA commentators) you probably heard the narrative before: Wal-Mart’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act began with the April 2012 New York Times article.
However, this is false.
Set forth below is the chronology of Wal-Mart’s FCPA scrutiny – as even reported by the New York Times – and based on other information in the public domain.
About That New Yorker Trump Organization Azerbaijan Story
On February 23rd, I received an e-mail from Adam Davidson with a re: line “New Yorker Magazine on the FCPA” which stated in pertinent part “I’m writing an article about a fascinating case of potential FCPA violation and would welcome the chance to discuss.”
Since launching FCPA Professor in 2009, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with journalists writing about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, but my 45 minute conversation with Davidson on February 23rd was the strangest, most concerning conversation I’ve ever had with a journalist about the FCPA.