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Friday Roundup

By on May 19, 2017 in Cas-Global, China, DOJ FCPA “Pilot Program”, ISO 37001, Microsoft, Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc., Offensive Use of FCPA, Permits / Licenses / Customs / Tax, Root Causes, Voluntary Disclosure
Roundup

Quotable, no reliable way to measure, Microsoft explains, scrutiny alert, a direct selling license in China, and offensive use of the FCPA. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Quotable

Some think – or at least I’ve been told – that certain of my Foreign Corrupt Practices Act views are controversial or out of the “main stream” (whatever the “main stream” actually is or means). Yet, I am confident that much of what I write and talk about represents silent majority views.

Indeed, as I’ve commented before, one of the interesting things about writing about the FCPA and related issues on a daily basis is that often I just need to wait for a former FCPA enforcement official to say the same thing. 

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Facilitating Payments or Bribes?

By on April 27, 2010 in Facilitating Payments, Greece, Helmerich and Payne Inc., India, Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc., U.S. v. Kay

In Greece, it’s the “little envelopes” that affect everyone from “hospital patients to fishmongers.” (see here for the Wall Street Journal story).

In India, it’s needing to “string up some wire and get licenses from the government” to start a “tiny business delivering telephone and Internet service” but “getting those things done without hassles require[s] a bribe.” (see here for the story from National Public Radio).

In July 2009, Nature’s Sunshine Products found out that it’s about payments to Brazilian customs agents to import certain unregistered products into Brazil (see here).

Also in July 2009, Helmerich & Payne found out that it’s about payments to various officials and representatives of the Argentine and Venezuelan customs services in connection with importation and exportation of goods and equipment (see here).

Numerous other examples abound.

Facilitating payments or bribes?

The FCPA has a specific exception for “facilitating or expediting payment[s] to a foreign official … the purpose of which is to expedite or to secure the performance of a routine governmental action by a foreign official.”

Where a facilitating payment ends and where a payment to “obtain or retain business” begins is a difficult question.

U.S. v. Kay, 359 F.3d 738 (5th Cir. 2004) is commonly viewed as answering that question.

However, Kay merely holds that Congress intended for the FCPA to apply broadly to payments intended to assist the payor, directly or indirectly, in obtaining or retaining business and that payments to a “foreign official” to reduce custom and tax liabilities can, under appropriate circumstances, fall within the statute. The Kay court empathically stated that not all such payments to a “foreign official” outside the context of directly securing a foreign government contract violate the FCPA; it merely held that such payments “could” violate the FCPA. The key question, according to Kay, is whether the payments at issue were intended to lower the company’s costs of doing business enough to assist the company in obtaining or retaining business. The Kay court recognized that “there are bound to be circumstances” in which such attenuated payments merely increase the profitability of an existing profitable company and thus, presumably, do not assist the payer in obtaining or retaining business. In fact, the court specifically stated: “…if the government is correct that anytime operating costs are reduced the beneficiary of such advantage is assisted in getting or keeping business, the FCPA’s language that expresses the necessary element of assisting in obtaining or retaining business would be unnecessary, and thus surplusage – a conclusion that we are forbidden to reach.”

Post-Kay none of the above seems to matter much.

Because the Nature’s Sunshine Products and Helmerich & Payne enforcement actions (as well as numerous other similar enforcement actions) were not challenged, it remains an open question whether the payments at issue in these cases, if subjected to judicial scrutiny, would satisfy the “obtain or retain business” element as interpreted in Kay or would be excepted as facilitating payments.

Many of these payments would appear attenuated to any specific cause-and-effect business nexus or otherwise would appear to have merely increased the profitability of an existing profitable business and, per the Kay holding, would presumably not satisfy this key FCPA antibribery element.

While some find facilitating payments to be a corrupt payment under a different name, the fact remains that the FCPA passed by Congress and signed by the President contains an express exception for facilitating payments.

It is this statute that the enforcement agencies are obligated to enforce and this express exception would certainly appear relevant to the above-described actions. Because these enforcement actions were not challenged, this obviously relevant defense was not explored in these cases and these post-Kay cases stand as de facto FCPA case law, notwithstanding the fact that the alleged conduct in these cases may have been excused because of the FCPA’s facilitating payment exception.

It’s a complex world.

Congress recognized that when it passed the FCPA, including the facilitating payment exception.

The Kay court recognized that when concluding that not all such attenuated payments violate the FCPA.

More On Control Person (And Similar Theories of Liability)

By on August 25, 2009 in Aid and Abet, Control Person, Monty Fu, Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc.

Law.com / The National Law Journal (see here) recently ran an interesting Q&A with the former Assistant Chief of the DOJ Fraud Section regarding the recent Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc. (“NSP”) enforcement action (see here for my prior post). While the NSP enforcement action may well be the first FCPA enforcement action in which the SEC charged a corporate executive with an FCPA violation under a Section 20(a) “control person” theory of liability, the SEC has previously charged corporate executives under other indirect theories including aiding and abetting a company’s FCPA violations by invoking Section 20(e).

For instance, in 2007, the SEC charged Monty Fu (the founder and, at various times, the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Syncor International Corporation) with aiding and abetting Syncor’s FCPA books and records and internal control violations.

The evidence against Fu?

As alleged in the SEC complaint (see here), “…Fu had the authority to maintain compliance with existing internal controls, and to implement additional internal controls designed to comply with the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions, YET FAILED TO DO SO.” (see para. 2, emphasis added).

In charging Fu both with direct violations of the FCPA’s books and records and internal control provisions (albeit by alleging in the alternative that Fu knew or was reckless in not knowing that the problematic payments were improperly recorded on the company’s books and records) and with aiding and abetting Syncor’s violations, the SEC alleged that Fu “knowingly failed to implement a system of internal accounting controls sufficient to provide reasonable assurance that transactions were recorded in Syncor’s books and records” in accordance with the FCPA (see para 22). As a result, the SEC charged that Fu “knowingly provided substantial assistance to Syncor” in connection with its violations (see para’s 28 and 33).

Whether the SEC invokes section 20(a) or 20(e), the FCPA enforcement trend is clearly greater scrutiny of corporate executives and a greater SEC expectation that corporate executives play a meaningful role in ensuring enterprise-wide FCPA compliance.

In other words, if you are an executive of an issuer and you don’t know what the acronym FCPA stands for, you better get educated.

Gray Sky Over Nature’s Sunshine As It Settles FCPA Enforcement Action

By on August 1, 2009 in Brazil, Consumer Products Industry, Control Person, Craig Huff, Douglas Faggioli, Executive Enforcement Action, Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc., Permits / Licenses / Customs / Tax, SEC Enforcement Action

Companies have varying degrees of FCPA risks. Generally, at the high-end of the spectrum is a resource extraction company operating in a third-world country with an unstable government. At the low-end of the spectrum, it would seem, is a Utah-based company which got its start as a small family business selling encapsulated cayenne and other herbs to health food stores.

Yet, as evidenced by the SEC’s recent FCPA enforcement action against Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc. (“NSP”), even a company with a relatively low FCPA risk profile can run afoul of the FCPA.

As described in the SEC’s Litigation Release (see here) NSP, without admitting or denying the allegations in an SEC civil complaint, agreed to pay a $600,000 civil penalty to resolve allegations that it violated (among other securities laws – see below) the FCPA’s anti-bribery, books and records, and internal control provisions.

According to the SEC complaint (see here), Brazil was NSP’s largest foreign market, but in approximately 2000, the Brazilian governmental agency responsible for regulating nutritional products reclassified certain of NSP’s products as medicines, thus requiring a registration process prior to import and sale of the products in Brazil. As alleged in the SEC complaint, NSP’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Brazil (“NSP Brazil”) circumvented the registration process by making approximately $1 million in cash payments to customs brokers, some of which was later used to pay Brazilian customs officials so that they would allow NSP Brazil to import unregistered product into Brazil. According to the SEC, these payments were booked by NSP Brazil as “importation advances,” but without supporting documentation. Thereafter, as alleged by the SEC, NSP Brazil purchased fictitious supporting documentation for the payments.

As suggested above, in addition to the FCPA charges, the SEC complaint also charges other securities laws violations not typically found in an FCPA enforcement action such as fraud in connection with the purchase and sale of securities and false filings with the SEC. These other charges appear to be based on the allegation that NSP, in a prior Form 10-K filing with the SEC, stated that NSP Brazil experienced a significant decline in sales “due to import regulations imposed by the Brazilian government” but which failed to disclose any material information related to the above-mentioned cash payments.

Also charged in the SEC complaint were Douglas Faggioli, the current President and Chief Executive Officer of NSP and a member of its board of directors who during the relevant time period was NSP’s Chief Operating Officer, and Craig Huff, NSP’s former CFO. The complaint alleges that Faggioli and Huff, as “control persons” of NSP, violated the FCPA’s books and records and internal control provisions. In language that is sure to induce a cold sweat for any executive, the SEC generally alleged that both Faggioli and Huff had “supervisory responsibilities” over NSP’s senior management and policies, yet as “control persons,” “failed to make and keep books, records, and accounts, which in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflected the transactions of NSP” and failed to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls. Without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations, Faggioli and Huff each agreed to pay a $25,000 civil penalty.

According to an NSP press release (see here) no “current NSP officers, directors, or employees are alleged to have participated in or had knowledge of any of the improper conduct” alleged in the SEC complaint. The press release also notes that NSP voluntarily disclosed the conduct at issue to both the SEC and the DOJ and fully cooperated in the government’s investigation. The press release also states that NSP “anticipates no action by the DOJ” as to the disclosed conduct.

The NSP FCPA enforcement action, and other such enforcement actions against traditionally low FCPA risk companies, should serve notice to all that no industry is immune from FCPA scrutiny.

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