Top Menu

Navigation

Friday Roundup

By on March 27, 2020 in Collateral Effects, Constellation Brands, FCPA Statistics, Has the FCPA Been Successful?, Lawrence Hoskins, Monitor, Prosecutorial Common Law
Roundup

Monitor costs, scrutiny alert, quotable, and survey says. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Monitor Costs

As highlighted in prior posts here and here, in late 2019 Ericsson resolved a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action and the $1.06 billion settlement amount was the largest net FCPA settlement amount in history. As a condition of settlement, Ericsson was required to engage an independent compliance monitor for a three-year period.

Recently, Ericsson disclosed “a provision of SEK 0.6 billion [approximately $60 million] was made to cover future monitoring costs.” (See here for the article “FCPA Ripples.”)

Continue Reading

Friday Roundup

By on August 21, 2015 in Akamai Technologies, BNY Mellon, Ford Motor Co., General Cable Corp., Guidance, Hiring Family Members of Foreign Officials, Investigative Fees, Petrobras, Prosecutorial Common Law, SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Voluntary Disclosure, Wal-Mart
Roundup2

Wal-Mart related, quotable, spot-on, scrutiny alerts and updates and prosecutorial common law defeat. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Wal-Mart Related

In its recent 2Q FY2016 earnings call Wal-Mart stated:

“FCPA and compliance-related costs were approximately $30 million, comprised of approximately $23 million for the ongoing inquiries and investigations, and approximately $7 million for our global compliance program and organizational enhancements. Last year, FCPA and compliance-related costs were $43 million in the second quarter. We expect FCPA-related expenses to continue to trend down, so we now expect our full year FCPA-related expenses to range between $130 million and $150 million. This compares to our guidance in February of $160 to $180 million.”

Doing the math, Wal-Mart’s 2Q FCPA and compliance-related costs is approximately $470,000 per working day.

Over the past approximate four years, I have tracked Wal-Mart’s quarterly disclosed pre-enforcement action professional fees and expenses. While some pundits have ridiculed me for doing so, such figures are notable because, as has been noted in prior posts and in my article “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Ripples,” settlement amounts in an actual FCPA enforcement action are often only a relatively minor component of the overall financial consequences that can result from corporate FCPA scrutiny.  Pre-enforcement action professional fees and expenses are typically the largest (in many cases to a degree of 3, 5, 10 or higher than settlement amounts) financial hit to a company under FCPA scrutiny.

While $470,000 per working day remains eye-popping, Wal-Mart’s recent figure suggests that the company’s pre-enforcement action professional fees and expenses have crested as the figures for the past seven quarters have been approximately $516,000, $563,000, $640,000, $662,000, $855,000, $1.1 million and $1.3 million per working day.

In the aggregate, Wal-Mart’s disclosed pre-enforcement professional fees and expenses are as follows.

FY 2013 = $157 million.

FY 2014 = $282 million.

FY 2015  = $173 million.

FY 2016 = $63 million (projections for the remainder of the FY of approximately $67 – $87 million)

Quotable

Regarding the recent BNY Mellon enforcement action, Jay Darden (Paul Hastings and recently the Assistant Chief of the DOJ’s Fraud Section) stated: “it’s not the U.S. government’s job to regulate hiring policy.” (See here).

*****

In this Corporate Crime Reporter, Lamia Matta (Miller & Chevalier) states:

“Companies are less aggressive in [voluntarily] reporting. Companies are finding that they don’t save a whole lot by going in and self-reporting as soon as they find a problem. They are still subject to extensive investigation. The cost is the same if they self-report and then cooperate as it would be if they just cooperate. The agencies say that is not the case. But if you look at the trends, that does seem to be the case.”

“The other thing is that the decision to self-report is taking a lot longer than it once used to. Companies might think — it may make sense to self-report, but we are going to wait it out a bit before we do so. The process is now much more considered than it once used to be.”

“And companies are not as inclined to buy into the agencies’ aggressive theories of jurisdiction as they might have once been. For all of these reasons, you are seeing companies being less quick to self report. I don’t know if the self-reporting numbers are down or not. They are difficult to track.”

Spot-On

This Bryan Cave alert regarding the recent order in the DOJ’s enforcement action against Lawrence Hoskins (see here for the prior post) is spot-on.

It states:

“This holding directly contradicts the “guidance” provided by the U.S. in its Resource Guide, published jointly by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. That guidance states unequivocally:

‘Individuals and companies, including foreign nationals and companies, may also be liable for conspiring to violate     the FCPA—i.e., for agreeing to commit an FCPA violation—even if they are not, or could not be, independently charged with a substantive FCPA violation.

* * *

A foreign company or individual may be held liable for aiding and abetting an FCPA violation or for conspiring to violate the FCPA, even if the foreign company or individual did not take any act in furtherance of the corrupt payment while in the territory of the United States.’

This Order reminds companies and individuals that some of the legal principles surrounding the FCPA recently have been developed out of settlements with the government instead of through the courts. On issues as important as these, it can be worthwhile to test some of the government’s theories in the only place they can be adjudicated.”

To learn about other selective information, half-truths, and information that is demonstratively false in the FCPA Guidance see “Grading the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Guidance.”

Scrutiny Alerts and Updates

Ford Motor Co.

Reuters reports:

“The [SEC] is helping German prosecutors to investigate the alleged payment of bribes by Ford to speed the passage of containers through Russian customs, a source at the U.S. carmaker said on Tuesday. Ford and Schenker, the freight business of state-owned German rail company Deutsche Bahn, have been under investigation in Germany since 2013 over suspected bribery and other offences related to the busy Russian port of St. Petersburg. The port is Russia’s European gateway with more than 2,000 companies using it for shipments, according to its website, but it is also known among customers for notoriously long delays. The [SEC] has now joined investigations by prosecutors in Cologne, where Ford’s European headquarters are based, a source at the carmaker told Reuters, confirming a report in Tuesday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Two Ford employees, eight current and former workers at Schenker and one staffer from a Russian contractor are under investigation, a spokesman at the Cologne prosecutor’s office said.”

Petrobras

In regards to this recent media report, the company stated in this filing:

“Petrobras hereby declares that, in relation to news published in the media concerning the payment of a fine to the U.S. authorities, there are no ongoing negotiations regarding the eventual payment of a fine for the winding up of civil and criminal investigations in the United States regarding the violation of the anti-corruption legislation. Nor has there been any decision by the U.S. authorities regarding the merit of such an investigation or the eventual amounts involved.”

SciClone Pharmaceuticals

One of the longest instances of FCPA scrutiny concerns SciClone Pharmaceuticals.  As highlighted in this prior post, in August 2010 the company disclosed:

“On August 5, 2010 SciClone was contacted by the SEC and advised that the SEC has initiated a formal, non-public investigation of SciClone. In connection with this investigation, the SEC issued a subpoena to SciClone requesting a variety of documents and other information. The subpoena requests documents relating to a range of matters including interactions with regulators and government-owned entities in China, activities relating to sales in China and documents relating to certain company financial and other disclosures. On August 6, 2010, the Company received a letter from the DOJ indicating that the DOJ was investigating Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues in the pharmaceutical industry generally, and had received information about the Company’s practices suggesting possible violations.”

Recently the company disclosed:

“In July 2015, SciClone reached an agreement in principle with the staff of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed settlement for a range of matters, including without admitting or denying possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The agreement, which includes disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and penalties totaling $12.8 million, is contingent upon the execution of formal settlement documents and approval of the settlement by the SEC’s governing Commission. The Company has not yet reached a resolution of these matters with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and management continues to work diligently to obtain closure on this matter.”

Akamai Technologies 

The company updated its previous FCPA-related disclosure as follows:

“We are conducting an internal investigation, with the assistance of outside counsel, relating to sales practices in a country outside the U.S. that represented less than 1% of our revenue during the three and six months ended June 30, 2015, and in each of the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012. The internal investigation includes a review of compliance with the requirements of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other applicable laws and regulations by employees in that market.  In February 2015, we voluntarily contacted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice to advise both agencies of this internal investigation. We are cooperating with those agencies. As of the filing of this quarterly report on Form 10-Q, we cannot predict the outcome of this matter. No provision with respect to this matter has been made in our consolidated financial statements.”

General Cable 

The company recently disclosed the following regarding its previously disclosed FCPA scrutiny.

“We have been reviewing, with the assistance of external counsel, certain commission payments involving sales to customers of our subsidiary in Angola. The review has focused upon payment practices with respect to employees of public utility companies, use of agents in connection with such payment practices, and the manner in which the payments were reflected in our books and records. We have determined at this time that certain employees in our Portugal and Angola subsidiaries directly and indirectly made or directed payments at various times from 2002 through 2013 to officials of Angola government-owned public utilities that raise concerns under the FCPA and possibly under the laws of other jurisdictions. Based on an analysis completed with the assistance of our external counsel and forensic accountants, we have concluded at this time, that we are able to reasonably estimate the profit derived from sales made to the Angolan government-owned public utilities in connection with the payments described above which we believe is likely to ultimately be disgorged. As a result, we recorded an estimated charge in the amount of $24 million as an accrual as of December 31, 2014. There was no change to the accrual in the second quarter of 2015. The accrued amount reflects the probable and estimable amount of the Angola-related profits that the Company believes is subject to being disgorged, and does not include any provision for any fines, civil or criminal penalties, or other relief, any or all of which could be substantial.
We also have been reviewing, with the assistance of external counsel, our use and payment of agents in connection with our Thailand and India operations and certain transactions in our Egypt and China businesses, which may have implications under the FCPA. We have voluntarily disclosed these matters to the SEC and the DOJ and have provided them with additional information at their request, including information in response to an SEC subpoena. The SEC and DOJ inquiries into these matters are ongoing. We continue to cooperate with the DOJ and the SEC with respect to these matters. At this time, we are unable to predict the nature of any action that may be taken by the DOJ or SEC or any remedies these agencies may pursue as a result of such actions. We are continuing to implement a third party screening process on sales agents that we use outside of the United States, including, among other things, a review of the agreements under which they were retained and a risk-based assessment of such agents to determine the scope of due diligence measures to be performed by a third-party investigative firm. We also have provided anti-corruption training to our global sales force, and ultimately will provide such training to all salaried employees. In addition, we have hired a Chief Compliance Officer, who is responsible for the day-to-day management of our compliance function. The Chief Compliance Officer reports to our Chief Executive Officer, and also has a reporting relationship with the Audit Committee.”
Another Prosecutorial Common Law Defeat

Related to the above, one of the best guest posts in FCPA Professor history was this 2011 post from Michael Levy in which he described the concept of prosecutorial common law.  Prosecutorial common law is all around us.  Take a look at the footnotes of the FCPA Guidance – most of the “authority” cited for “legal” propositions is DOJ or SEC settlements.

For obvious reasons, prosecutorial common law does not sit well with federal court judges.  For instance, in U.S. v. Bodmer, Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York, in rejecting the DOJ’s position that the FCPA’s criminal penalty provisions applied to a foreign national prior to the 1998 FCPA amendments, noted as follows – “the Government’s charging decision, standing alone, does not establish the applicability of the statute.”  Likewise as noted in this previous post about the Giffen enforcement action, Judge William Pauley of the Southern District of New York stated that prosecutorial common law ”is not the kind or quality of precedent this Court need consider.”

Prosecutorial common law recently suffered another defeat when the Southern District of New York ruled that the Food & Drug Administration can’t bar a drug company from marketing a pill for off-label use as long as the claims are truthful.  (See here for the Wall Street Journal article).

The decision follows a 2012 decision in U.S. v. Caronia (see here for the prior post) in which the Second Circuit concluded that the DOJ’s theory of prosecution concerning so-called off-label promotion of drugs was invalid. Prior to Caronia and even after Caronia, the DOJ has used the theory of prosecution to secure billions in settlement against risk-averse pharmaceutical companies.

****
A good weekend to all.

Reading Assignments

By on December 2, 2014 in Enforcement Agency Policy, Prosecutorial Common Law, SEC
Read This

End of the semester reading assignments for those interested in topics related to FCPA enforcement.

Thus far in 2014, every SEC FCPA enforcement action (both corporate and individual) has been resolved via the SEC’s administrative process.  Against this backdrop, Judge Jed Rakoff’s (S.D.N.Y.) recent speech “Is the SEC Becoming a Law Unto Itself” is a suggested read.

Prosecutorial common law most certainly impacts FCPA enforcement.  My amicus brief filed in connection with the recent Supreme Court “foreign official” cert petition highlighted, among other things, how judicial percolation of the “foreign official” issue is unlikely given how the FCPA is enforced. Against this backdrop, a recent statement by Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas is a suggested read.

Both suggested reads are excerpted below.

Judge Rakoff’s Speech

In this recent speech Judge Jed Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) asks “is the SEC becoming a law unto itself” and discusses “some dangers that seem to lurk … in the SEC’s apparent new policy of bringing a greater percentage of its significant enforcement actions as administrative proceedings.”  In pertinent part, Judge Rakoff stated:

“[I]n recent months the S.E.C. has signaled its intention to bring as administrative actions certain kinds of enforcement actions that historically it has more often brought in the federal courts. As early as October of 2013, Andrew Ceresney, Director of the Division of Enforcement, stated that “Our expectation is that we will be bringing more administrative proceedings given the recent statutory changes.” He followed that up last June when, with specific reference to insider trading cases, which previously had only very rarely been brought administratively, rather than in federal court, Mr. Ceresney stated: “I do think we will bring more insider-trading cases as administrative proceedings in appropriate cases.” Not to be outdone, Kara Brockmeyer, the head of the SEC’s antiforeign- corruption enforcement unit, stated just two weeks ago that “It’s fair to say it’s the new normal. Just like the rest of the enforcement division, we’re moving towards using administrative proceedings more frequently.”

Judge Rakoff next provided an informative historical overview of the SEC’s evolving enforcement powers including recent Section 929 of Dodd-Frank which gave the SEC the power through internal administrative proceedings to impose monetary penalties.

In the words of Judge Rakoff:

“The net result of all this is that the S.E.C. can today obtain through internal administrative proceedings nearly everything it might obtain by going to court. This sea-change has come about almost entirely at the request of the S.E.C., usually by tacking the provisions authorizing such expansion onto one or another statute enacted in the wake of a financial scandal.

What has been the stated rationale for all these changes? Usually nothing more than a claim of greater efficiency. Thus, for example, when then-Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami submitted a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of Dodd-Frank, he devoted all of one sentence to what became Section 929P(a), stating: “Additional legislative proposals that would serve to enhance the Division’s effectiveness and efficiency include the ability to seek civil penalties in [administrative] cease-and-desist proceedings.” Similarly, the sole legislative history of Section 929P(a) in the House Report on Dodd-Frank states that “This section streamlines the SEC’s existing enforcement authorities by permitting the SEC to seek civil money penalties in cease-and-desist proceedings under Federal securities laws.”

While a claim to greater efficiency by any federal bureaucracy suggests a certain chutzpah, it is hard to find a better example of what is sometimes disparagingly called “administrative creep” than this expansion of the S.E.C.’s internal enforcement power.

To be sure, an S.E.C. enforcement action brought internally is in some superficial respects more “effective and efficient” and more “streamlined” than a similar action brought in federal court, for the simple reason that S.E.C. administrative proceedings involve much more limited discovery than federal actions, with no provision whatsoever for either depositions or interrogatories. Similarly, at the hearing itself, the Federal Rules of Evidence do not apply and the S.E.C. is free to introduce hearsay. Further still, there is no jury, and the matter is decided by an administrative law judge appointed and paid by the S.E.C. It is hardly surprising in these circumstances that the S.E.C. won 100% of its internal administrative hearings in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, whereas it won only 61% of its trials in federal court during the same period.

But, although the informality and arguable unfairness of S.E.C. administrative proceedings might present serious problems for those defending such actions, you might suppose that federal judges would be delighted to have fewer complicated securities cases burdening their overcrowded dockets. The reason, though, that I suggest that the judiciary and the public should be concerned about any trend toward preferring the S.E.C.’s internal administrative forum to the federal courts is that it hinders the balanced development of the securities laws.”

[…]

[G]iven the expansion of its internal jurisdiction occasioned by Dodd-Frank, the S.E.C. might well be tempted in the future to bring such cases as administrative enforcement actions, and thereby likely avoid the sting of well-publicized defeats. But the result would be that the law in such cases would effectively be made, not by neutral federal courts, but by S.E.C. administrative judges.

This is because, at least in the case of administrative decisions that have been formally approved by the S.E.C., such decisions, though appealable to the federal courts of appeals, are presumed correct unless unreasonable. In other words, while the decisions of federal district courts on matters of law are subject to de novo review by the appellate courts, the law as determined by an administrative law judge in a formal administrative decision must be given deference by federal courts unless the decision is not within the range of reasonable interpretations.

To put it in terms that this audience is familiar with, an S.E.C. administrative judge’s formal ruling on an otherwise undecided issue of statutory interpretation of the securities law is, just like rules enacted by the Commission, entitled to “Chevron” deference.”

[…]

In short, what you have here are broad anti-fraud provisions, critical to the transparency of the securities markets, that have historically been construed and elaborated by the federal courts but that, under Dodd-Frank, could increasingly be construed and interpreted by the S.E.C.’s administrative law judges if the S.E.C. chose to bring its more significant cases in that forum. Whatever one might say about the S.E.C.’s quasijudicial functions, this is unlikely, I submit, to lead to as balanced, careful, and impartial interpretations as would result from having those cases brought in federal court.

In the short-run, this would be unfair to the litigants. In the longer-run, it might not be good for the S.E.C. itself, which has its own reputation for fairness to consider. But, most of all, in the both the short-run and the long-run, it would not be good for the impartial development of the law in an area of immense practical importance.

Almost from the very outset of the administrative state, the defense of the huge power we accord to administrative agencies – as classically stated by the second Chairman of the S.E.C., James Landis, in his book The Administrative Process – is that no practical alternative exists in our complex society. But when it comes to interpreting the securities laws, a practical alternative – and the very one provided by the Constitution – has functioned very effectively for decades, namely, adjudication in the federal courts. I see no good reason to displace that constitutional alternative with administrative fiat, and I would urge the S.E.C. to consider that it is neither in its own longterm interest, nor in the interest of the securities markets, nor in the interest of the public as a whole, for the S.E.C. to become, in effect, a law onto itself.”

Justice Scalia / Thomas Statement

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in an insider trading case, Whitman v. United States.  Much of the news surrounding the denial though focused on this statement by Justice Scalia and joined by Justice Thomas.  The statement reads in full (internal citations omitted) as follows.

“A court owes no deference to the prosecution’s interpretation of a criminal law. Criminal statutes “are for the
courts, not for the Government, to construe.” This case, a criminal prosecution under §10(b) of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 raises a related question: Does a court owe deference to an executive agency’s interpretation of a law that contemplates both criminal and administrative enforcement?

The Second Circuit thought it does. It deferred to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s interpretation of §10(b), and on that basis affirmed petitioner Douglas Whitman’s criminal conviction. Its decision tilled no new ground. Other Courts of Appeals have deferred to executive interpretations of a variety of laws that have both criminal and administrative applications.

I doubt the Government’s pretensions to deference. They collide with the norm that legislatures, not executive officers, define crimes. When King James I tried to create new crimes by royal command, the judges responded that “the King cannot create any offence by his prohibition or proclamation, which was not an offence before.” James I, however, did not have the benefit of Chevron deference. With deference to agency interpretations of statutory provisions to which criminal prohibitions are attached, federal administrators can in effect create (and uncreate) new crimes at will, so long as they do not roam beyond ambiguities that the laws contain. Undoubtedly Congress may make it a crime to violate a regulation, but it is quite a different matter for Congress to give agencies—let alone for us to presume that Congress gave agencies—power to resolve ambiguities in criminal legislation.

The Government’s theory that was accepted here would, in addition, upend ordinary principles of interpretation. The rule of lenity requires interpreters to resolve ambiguity in criminal laws in favor of defendants. Deferring to the prosecuting branch’s expansive views of these statutes “would turn [their] normal construction . . . upside-down, replacing the doctrine of lenity with a doctrine of severity.”

The best that one can say for the Government’s position is that in Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687 (1995), we deferred, with scarcely any explanation, to an agency’s interpretation of a law lenity aside in a footnote, stating that “[w]e have never suggested that the rule of lenity should provide the standard for reviewing facial challenges to administrative regulations.” That statement contradicts the many cases before and since holding that, if a law has both criminal and civil applications, the rule of lenity governs its interpretation in both settings. The footnote in Babbitt added that the regulation at issue was clear enough to fulfill the rule of lenity’s purpose of providing “fair warning” to would-be violators. But that is not the only function performed by the rule of lenity; equally important, it vindicates the principle that only the legislature may define crimes and fix punishments. Congress cannot, through ambiguity, effectively leave that function to the courts—much less to the administrative bureaucracy. Babbitt’s drive-by ruling, in short, deserves little weight.

Whitman does not seek review on the issue of deference, and the procedural history of the case in any event makes it a poor setting in which to reach the question. So I agree with the Court that we should deny the petition. But when a petition properly presenting the question comes before us, I will be receptive to granting it.”

FCPA Readings

By on March 12, 2014 in Books and Records, Enforcement Agency Policy, Enforcement Agency Speeches, FCPA Scholarship, Internal Controls, Legislative History, Prosecutorial Common Law, Trade Barriers and Distortions

If your idea of a good time is cuddling up with an entire law journal volume devoted to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, then this post is for you.

Even if that is not your idea of a good time, if you are the least bit interested in the FCPA and its evolution, then you owe it to yourself to get your hands on the Fall 1982 edition of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, a symposium volume titled “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:  Domestic and International Implications.”

This post previously highlighted the speech by Richard Shine (Chief, Multinational Fraud Branch, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice – the name given to the DOJ’s then de facto FCPA Unit) in the volume.

This recent post highlighted the speech by Frederick Wade (Chief Counsel, SEC Enforcement Division) in the volume.

The remainder of this post highlights notable aspects of other articles found in the Fall 1982 edition of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce.

In “An Overview of the FCPA,” Wallace Timmeny (the former Deputy Director, SEC Division of Enforcement and at the time a lawyer in private practice) rightly identified the foreign policy concerns which motivated Congress to pass the FCPA:

“Concerns were expressed that our government was faced with foreign policy determinations and decisions made by American corporations.  In other words, some of our corporations were affecting foreign policy and there was also the overriding concern that the whole idea of foreign payments or corruption in business was really putting an arrow in the bow of the countries that oppose our system.”

For more on this primary motivation of Congress in enacting the FCPA, and how the FCPA was thus not a purely altruistic act, see my article “The Story of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”

In “An Examination of the Accounting Provisions of the FCPA,” Lloyd Feller (the former Associate Director of the SEC’s Division of Market Regulation and at the time a lawyer in private practice) nicely touched upon the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions and how they created much controversy at the time.

“Let me try to put into context the controversy surrounding the accounting provisions.  First, it is important to understand that the accounting provisions are part of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and apply to all issuers which register securities with the SEC.  The provisions apply to all such issuers, whether or not they do business overseas.  The Act, as it is applied through the accounting provisions, has absolutely nothing to do with foreign corrupt practices; it has to do with accounting, including the maintenance of books and records, and the establishment and maintenance of a system of internal accounting controls.”

“I think it is important to start with the understanding of how the Act was presented to the corporate community at the time it was passed, because the context in which the words were used and the purpose for which the accounting provisions were intended create the great controversy.  It is important to understand that people who never heard of the bribery of foreign officials woke up one day and found that an Act had just been passed which applied to them in very significant ways.  This was an Act which they had never heard of, had never thought involved them, had never paid any attention to, and had never understood.  They listened to the lawyers and accountants explain it to them and still did not understand.”

In “The SEC Interpretative and Enforcement Program Under the FCPA,” John Sweeny (former Assistant General Counsel of the SEC and at the time a lawyer in private practice) rightly noted:

“The SEC did not actively support the bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Indeed, it’s not entirely clear that they have any interest in prohibiting bribery per se.”

Sweeny also nicely touched upon a prosecutorial common law issue that remains today.

“The corporate community cannot sit back and wait to see how the law develops.  Because it makes sound business sense to comply with federal regulatory authorities without a public clamor, corporations must confirm their activity in ways which the agency requires.  To do otherwise would mean that the corporations would be risking substantial litigation expenses and adverse publicity.”

In “International Aspects of the Control of Illicit Payments,” Professor Seymour Rubin assessed the then current state of the FCPA.

“The course of events in this particular area has been long, but it has not yielded much in the way of result.  Whether the FCPA has yielded a great deal in the way of results, I leave to all of you who have considered the matter.  Certainly it has yielded much in the way of instruction to people in various corporations.  I am somewhat impressed by the amount of paper which has been produced on this subject.  It reminds me again of the old saying to the effect that when the weight of the paper equals the weight of the airplane, the airplane will fly.”

Professor Rubin also rightly identified bribery and corruption as a trade issue and particularly how Senate Resolution 265 sponsored by Senator Ribicoff during the FCPA’s legislative debate was the most promising way to deal with the bribery and corruption problem.  For more on Senate Resolution 265, see the Story of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (pgs. 982-984).

“[Senator Ribicoff’s proposal – Senate Resolution 265] was more realistic than some of the other proposals.  In particular, Senator Ribicoff argued that bribes, as well as similar practices, represent distortions of proper trade practices.  Under this premise, the members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade would be the appropriate group to consider the question of illicit payments and bribes that distort the fair competition desirable in the field of international trade.  In other words, just as dumping and subsidization distort normal competition, so too does the practice of making illicit payments.  This premise served as the basis upon which the issue was to be presented at the GATT conference.  But when a special trade representative presented Senator Ribicoff’s proposal before the GATT conference, he was greeted with polite silence.  The GATT, in 1979, concluded a multilateral trade negotiation.  Among other things, this multilateral trade negotiation dealt with trade-distorting practices such as nontariff barriers, the question of government procurement, dumping codes, and the anti-subsidy or subsidies and countervailing duties.  It would seem that the multilateral trade negotiation would have been a legitimate arena in which to discuss the subject, as being one more example of a trade distortion which ought to be regulated.”

“I think if one were to rexamine the idea presented in Senate Resolution 265 and adopt this in the area of trade, one would be addressing the problem of illicit payments in more meaningful and significant terms.  When a large contract is lost by an American corporation because somebody else paid a bribe, a trade distortion results.  Clearly, if one were really serious about achieving a meaningful agreement in the area of international control of illicit payments, the peg on which to hang it would be trade policy and not morality.”

In “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:  Implications for the Private Practitioner,” Robert Primoff (a lawyer in private practice) called the FCPA a “prosecutor’s paradise” and observed:

“The target is always guilty of the violation.  The government has the option of deciding whether or not to prosecute.  For practitioners, however, the situation is intolerable.  We must be able to advise our clients as to whether their conduct violates the law, not whether this year’s crop of administrators is likely to enforce a particular alleged violation.  That would produce, in effect, a government of men and women rather than a government of law.”

If the Fall 1982 edition of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce does not completely fill your FCPA belly, you might also want to check out Volume 18, Number 2 of the Northwestern Journal of International Business (Winter 1998).

It is a symposium edition titled “A Review of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on Its Twentieth Anniversary:  Its Application, Defense and International Aftermath.”  The articles are rather pedestrian, but Stanley Sporkin’s (the former Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division during Congress’s consideration and deliberation of the FCPA) article “The Worldwide Banning of Schmiergeld:  A Look at the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act On Its Twenieth Birthday” is worth a read as he provides a first-person account of the origins of the FCPA. [In case you are wondering Schmiergeld is the German word for bribe].

See here for a prior post detailing articles in a 2012 symposium edition of the Ohio State Law Journal “The FCPA At Thirty-Five and Its Impact on Global Business.”

Requiring The DOJ or SEC To Prove Its Case Is Not “Criminal”

By on February 12, 2014 in Board Issues, JPMorgan, Prosecutorial Common Law, UBS

It is truly a sorry state of affairs that have come to define government enforcement of criminal (or even civil) laws against business organizations.

Exhibit A is this recent CNBC video clip of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s interview of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

As you likely know, JPMorgan recently resolved a variety of criminal and civil matters brought by various government enforcement agencies for approximately $20 billion.

“SORKIN: So, you look at these big numbers. And they are big numbers. And so the public looks at them and they are trying to grasp and understand what to make it. Do you think ultimately, that it was fair?

DIMON: No. I think a lot of it was unfair, but I’m not going to go into the details.”

No surprise there as the various JPMorgan resolution documents contained a so-called “muzzle clause.”  (See paragraph 17 of the JPMorgan DPA).

Dimon continued:

“And I’m grateful to have it behind us. Because the most important thing for a company is you do your job. Serving clients and communities around the world. And this is a huge negative for the company – a huge distraction of management time, board time, when we should really be helping our clients, which includes cities and schools. So we just wanted to get back, do what we’re good at and what we are supposed to be doing.”

The interview then continued as follows.

“SORKIN: On the stuff you think was wrong, do you think you fully remedied it?

DIMON: I guess at one point it doesn’t matter who you think is wrong or right, so we can debate all day long whether we should have paid. […] You know, again, you’re really caught between two bad choices. We made the one that was better for the company.

SORKIN: Right.

DIMON: Whether it should have been high or low, I don’t care anymore. I’ve moved on. That was last year. I’m looking forward to 2014.

SORKIN: One more question on that, which though is, was there a moment – what was the moment for you when you said to yourself, “ok. Pay it. I want to put this behind me.” And was there something that happened? Was it a conversation with the board? Was it a conversation with Eric Holder? What was that moment for you?

DIMON: First of all, the board was involved every step of the way in this. It was this kind of unprecedented, kind of – you know we have multiple regulators and multiple U.S. attorneys and district – Department of Justice. And it was just, thinking it through, looking at our options and realizing there are two really bad options. And that the wrong thing to do is to complain, fight and then you could have said, well why not go to court all those years? So if you are my board, you would have said, why would you do that and subject your company to three or four more years and the outcomes could be worse. Then wouldn’t even necessarily be better. So a lot of people said fight – if you think you are right, fight – banks have a very tough time doing that. It would really hurt this company and that would have been criminal for me to subject our company to that kind of – those kinds of issues.”

Obviously, one can assume that Dimon did not literally mean it was criminal to put the DOJ and/or SEC to its burden of proof.

However, the notion that an individual with fiduciary duties to a corporation and its shareholders would speak in those terms about something so basic and fundamental to the rule of law and our legal system is truly troubling.

But then again, can you blame Dimon?  He was perhaps simply acting consistent with those fiduciary duties and in the best interest of shareholders.   After all, should JPMorgan have put the DOJ (or SEC) to its burden of proof and thus been criminally indicted (or merely charged in a civil case) the hit to JPMorgan’s market capitalization (approximately $215 billion) likely would have been greater than $20 billion.  Viewed this way, the decision of JPMorgan’s board and it executives seems like a rationale corporate decision in the best interest of shareholders.

But here is the problem as I recently highlighted in my article “Why You Should Be Alarmed By the ADM FCPA Enforcement Action.”  While the specific risk-averse business decisions of a specific company may seem minor in isolation, the aggregate effect of these numerous decisions contributes to a facade of enforcement of any law – whether it is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (see here) or otherwise.

As former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rightly noted in the FCPA context:

“In an ironic twist, the more that American companies elect to settle and not force the DOJ to defend its aggressive interpretation of the [FCPA], the more aggressive DOJ has become in its interpretation of the law and its prosecution decisions.”

For more on this dynamic see “Prosecutorial Common Law” by Michael Levy –  one of best guest posts in the history of FCPA Professor.

It truly is a sorry state of affairs.

And there is more.

As highlighted at the end of this video (around the five minute mark), Senator Elizabeth Warren chides government regulators for not exploiting this imbalance even more to extract even more shareholder money from risk averse corporations.

*****

The New York Times returns, once again, to JPMorgan’s FCPA scrutiny concerning alleged hiring practices in China.  This article states:

“[A] confidential email has emerged that shows a top Chinese regulator directly asked Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, for a “favor” to hire a young job applicant. The applicant, a family friend of the regulator, now works at JPMorgan.  […]  JPMorgan said Mr. Dimon had nothing to do with the decision to hire the young woman, described within the bank as well qualified. And like the C.E.O. of any large company, Mr. Dimon can be expected to meet with many people in a given day. According to a person briefed on the investigation, he is not suspected of any wrongdoing. Still, the episode underscores the dual forces driving JPMorgan and other Wall Street banks to hire the family and friends of China’s ruling elite. The banks sought to build good will with Chinese officials, who, in turn, expected favors from the banks.”

*****

Related to the above issue, this article states:

“UBS has suspended two staff members, including its top capital markets banker in Asia, as the Swiss bank investigates its hiring of the daughter [Joyce Wei] of the chairman of a Chinese chemicals company that is considering a $1 billion share sale the bank has sought a role in.  […]  Ms. Wei is the daughter of Wei Qi, the chairman of Tianhe Chemicals, a privately owned Chinese company that is considering a potential $1 billion initial public offering in Hong Kong this year. UBS is one of the banks positioned to secure a role in the deal.  […]  “It’s not a ‘princeling’ issue, because Joyce Wei is not a princeling,” [a person familar with the matter] said, referring to the children of senior Chinese government officials. “Tianhe is not a state-owned company,” the person added. Instead, the investigation is focused on “whether internal processes were adhered to or not.”

Even so, UBS remains part of the SEC’s industry sweep of the financial sector regarding hiring practices in China.

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes