Category: Siemens

Friday Roundup

The anti-bribery business, quotable, scrutiny alerts and updates, and for the reading stack.  It’s all here in the Friday Roundup.

“The Anti-Bribery Business”

Several articles have been written about FCPA Inc., a term I coined in April 2010 (see here), as well as the “facade of FCPA enforcement” (see here for my 2010 article of the same name).

The articles have included: “Cashing in on Corruption” (Washington Post); “The Bribery Racket” (Forbes); and “FCPA Inc. and the Business of Bribery” (Wall Street Journal).

I talked at length with The Economist about the above topics and certain of my comments are included in this recent article “The Anti-Bribery Business.”

“The huge amount of work generated for internal and external lawyers and for compliance staff is the result of firms bending over backwards to be co-operative, in the hope of negotiating reduced penalties. Some are even prepared to waive the statute of limitations for the conclusion of their cases. They want to be sure they have answered the “Where else?” question: where in the world might the firm have been engaging in similar practices?

In doing so, businesses are egged on by what Mr Koehler calls “FCPA Inc”. This is “a very aggressively marketed area of the law,” he says, “with no shortage of advisers financially incentivised to tell you the sky is falling in.” Convinced that it is, the bosses of accused companies will then agree to any measure, however excessive, to demonstrate that they have comprehensively answered the “Where else?” question. So much so that even some law enforcers have started telling them to calm down. Last year Leslie Caldwell, head of the DOJ’s criminal division, said internal investigations were sometimes needlessly broad and costly, delaying resolution of matters. “We do not expect companies to aimlessly boil the ocean,” she said.

Her words have provided scant comfort: defence lawyers say that their clients feel that if they investigate problems less exhaustively, they risk giving the impression that they are withholding information. Some say the DOJ is maddeningly ambiguous, encouraging firms to overreact when allegations surface.”

Quotable

Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell is spot-on in this recent Q&A in Fraud Magazine as to the importance of uniquely tailored compliance.

“I think companies have to tailor their compliance programs and their investigative mechanisms to their businesses. There’s no one-size-fits-all compliance program. Different businesses have different risks. And a company needs to do an assessment that’s very tailored to their risks and game out what could go wrong and figure out how to prevent that from happening.”

She is less than clear though when describing when the DOJ would like companies to voluntarily disclose:

“We don’t want a company to wait until they’ve completed their own investigation before they come to us. We’ll give them room to do that, but there may be investigative steps that we want to take that maybe the company is not even capable of taking. We definitely don’t want to send a message that the company should complete its own investigation and then come to us. However, we obviously don’t expect a company to report to us as soon as it receives a hotline report that it hasn’t even checked into yet.”

For your viewing pleasure, here is the video of a recent speech by Caldwell (previously highlighted here) along with Q&A.

Scrutiny Alerts and Updates

Bilfinger

Reuters reports:

“German engineering firm Bilfinger has become the first international company to disclose to Brazil that it may have paid bribes as it seeks leniency under a new anti-corruption law, Comptroller General Valdir Simão said on Thursday. By reporting potential graft to the comptroller, known by the acronym CGU, Bilfinger hopes to continue operating in Brazil, Simão said, though it may still pay damages. “The company knows it will be punished in Brazil; it is not exempt from fines,” Simao said at a conference in Sao Paulo adding that in exchange the company could be guaranteed the right to keep operating in Brazil. Companies that are convicted for bribery could be banned from future contracts in Brazilunder the law, which took effect in January 2014. Bilfinger said in March that it may have paid 1 million euros to public officials in Brazil in connection with orders for large screens for security control centers during the 2014 soccer World Cup. It is conducting an internal investigation and collaborating with Brazilian authorities, Bilfinger said in a statement at the time. Five companies are pursuing leniency deals with the CGU, Simao said, adding that such deals are “quite new” for the country. Four are tied to a scandal at Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA, he said.”

As highlighted in this previous post, in December 2013 German-based Bilfinger paid approximately $32 million to resolve an FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in Nigeria.  The enforcement action was resolved via a three-year deferred prosecution agreement.

Siemens

Reuters reports:

“A Chinese regulator investigated Siemens AG last year over whether the German group’s healthcare unit and its dealers bribed hospitals to buy expensive disposable products used in some of its medical devices, three people with knowledge of the probe told Reuters. The investigation, which has not previously been reported, follows a wide-reaching probe into the pharmaceutical industry in China that last year saw GlaxoSmithKline Plc fined nearly $500 million for bribing officials to push its medicine sales. China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) accused Siemens and its dealers of having violated competition law by donating medical devices in return for agreements to exclusively buy the chemical reagents needed to run the machines from Siemens, the people said.”

In 2008, Siemens paid $800 million to resolve DOJ and SEC FCPA enforcement actions that were widespread in scope.  The enforcement action remains the largest of all-time in terms of overall settlement amount.

Dun & Bradstreet

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

“On March 18, 2012, we announced we had temporarily suspended our Shanghai Roadway D&B Marketing Services Co. Ltd. (“Roadway”) operations in China, pending an investigation into allegations that its data collection practices may have violated local Chinese consumer data privacy laws. Thereafter, the Company decided to permanently cease the operations of Roadway. In addition, we have been reviewing certain allegations that we may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and certain other laws in our China operations. As previously reported, we have voluntarily contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to advise both agencies of our investigation, and we are continuing to meet with representatives of both the SEC and DOJ in connection therewith. Our investigation remains ongoing and is being conducted at the direction of the Audit Committee.

During the three months ended March 31, 2015 , we incurred $0.4 million of legal and other professional fees related to matters in China, as compared to $0.3 million of legal and other professional fees related to matters in China for the three months ended March 31, 2014.

As our investigation and our discussions with both the SEC and DOJ are ongoing, we cannot yet predict the ultimate outcome of the matter or its impact on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Based on our discussions with the SEC and DOJ, including an indication from the SEC in February and March 2015 of its initial estimate of the amount of net benefit potentially earned by the Company as a result of the challenged activities, we continue to believe that it is probable that the Company will incur a loss related to the government’s investigation. We will be meeting with the Staff of the SEC to obtain and to further understand the assumptions and methodologies underlying their current estimate of net benefit and will subsequently provide a responsive position. The DOJ also advised the Company in February 2015 that they will be proposing terms of a potential settlement, but we are unable to predict the timing or terms of any such proposal. Accordingly, we are unable at this time to reasonably estimate the amount or range of any loss, although it is possible that the amount of such loss could be material.”

Bio-Rad

The company disclosed as follows concerning civil litigation filed in the aftermath of its November 2014 FCPA enforcement action (see here for the prior post).

“On January 23, 2015, the City of Riviera Beach General Employees’ Retirement System filed a new shareholder derivative lawsuit in the Superior Court of Contra Costa County against three of our current directors and one former director. We are also named as a nominal defendant. In the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that our directors breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty by failing to ensure that we had sufficient internal controls and systems for compliance with the FCPA; that we failed to provide adequate training on the FCPA; and that based on these actions, the directors have been unjustly enriched. Purportedly seeking relief on our behalf, the plaintiff seeks an award of restitution and unspecified damages, costs and expenses (including attorneys’ fees). We and the individual defendants have filed a demurrer requesting dismissal of the complaint in this case.

On January 30, 2015, we received a demand pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law from the law firm of Scott + Scott LLP on behalf of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 38 Pension Fund to inspect certain of our books and records. The alleged purpose of the demand is to investigate potential wrongdoing, mismanagement, and breach of fiduciary duties by our directors and executive officers in connection with the matters relating to our FCPA settlement with the SEC and DOJ, and alleged lack of internal controls. We objected to the demand on procedural grounds by letter. On May 1, 2015, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 38 Pension Fund filed an action against us in the Delaware Court of Chancery to compel the inspection of the requested books and records.

On March 13, 2015, we received a demand pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law from the law firm of Kirby McInerney LLP on behalf of Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System to inspect certain of our books and records. The alleged purpose of the demand is to investigate potential wrongdoing, mismanagement, and breach of fiduciary duties by our directors and executive officers in connection with the matters relating to our FCPA settlement with the SEC and DOJ, and alleged lack of internal controls. We objected to the demand on procedural grounds by letter. On April 21, 2015, Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System filed an action against us in the Delaware Court of Chancery to compel the inspection of the requested books and records.”

Nortek

The company disclosed its FCPA scrutiny earlier this year and stated as follows in its recent quarterly filing:

“For the first quarter of 2015 approximately $1 million was recorded for legal and other professional services incurred related to the internal investigation of this matter. The Company expects to incur additional costs relating to the investigation of this matter throughout 2015.”

For the Reading Stack

From Global Compliance News by Baker & McKenzie titled “When a DPA is DOA:  What The Increasing Judicial Disapproval of Corporate DPAs Means for Corporate Resolutions With the U.S. Government.”

“The legal setting in which corporations are negotiating with U.S. regulators is always evolving. Federal judges’ increasing willingness to second-guess negotiated settlements between the government and corporations is likely to encourage government attorneys to seek even more onerous settlements to ensure that judges do not reject them or criticize the agency in open court. Companies and their counsel should be ready to push back, using the judicial scrutiny to their advantage where possible.”

*****

A good weekend to all.

Friday Roundup

Is this appropriate, sentenced, scrutiny alerts and updates, quotable, a future foreign official teaser?, Brazil update, and for the reading stack.

It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Is This Appropriate?

If this truly is an event, “Drinks With an FBI Agent – Inside Stories From the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” is it appropriate?

Sentenced

Chinea and DeMeneses Sentences

The DOJ announced

“Benito Chinea and Joseph DeMeneses, the former chief executive officer and former managing director of a broker-dealer Direct Access Partner “were sentenced to prison … for their roles in a scheme to pay bribes to a senior official in Venezuela’s state economic development bank, Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (Bandes), in return for trading business that generated more than $60 million in commissions.”

Chinea and DeMeneses were each sentenced to four years in prison.  They were also ordered to pay $3,636,432 and $2,670,612 in forfeiture, respectively, which amounts represent their earnings from the bribery scheme.  On Dec. 17, 2014, both defendants pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Travel Act.”

In the release, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell stated:

“These Wall Street executives orchestrated a massive bribery scheme with a corrupt official in Venezuela to illegally secure tens of millions of dollars in business for their firm. The convictions and prison sentences of the CEO and Managing Director of a sophisticated Wall Street broker-dealer demonstrate that the Department of Justice will hold individuals accountable for violations of the FCPA and will pursue executives no matter where they are on the corporate ladder.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York stated:

“Benito Chinea and Joseph DeMeneses paid bribes to an officer of a state-run development bank in exchange for lucrative business she steered to their firm. Chinea and DeMeneses profited for a time from the corrupt arrangement, but that profit has turned into prison and now they must forfeit their millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains as well as their liberty.”

Elgawhary Sentence

This previous post highlighted the DOJ enforcement action against Asem Elgawhary, a former principal vice president of Bechtel Corporation and general manager of a joint venture operated by Bechtel and an Egyptian utility company, for allegedly accepting $5.2 million in kickbacks to manipulate the competitive bidding process for state-run power contracts in Egypt.

The DOJ recently announced that Elgawhary was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison.

When the Alstom enforcement action was announced in December 2014 (see here and here for prior posts), Elgawhary was described as an Egyptian “foreign official.”

So what was Elgawhary?

A former principal vice president of Bechtel Corporation and general manager of a joint venture operated by Bechtel and an Egyptian utility company or a Egyptian “foreign official?”

Can the DOJ have it both ways?

Scrutiny Alerts and Updates

Anheuser-Busch InBev

Anheuser-Busch InBev recently disclosed in its annual report:

“We have been informed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice that they are conducting investigations into our affiliates in India, including a non-consolidated Indian joint venture that we previously owned, ABInBev India Private Limited, and whether certain relationships of agents and employees were compliant with the FCPA. We are investigating the conduct in question and are cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Bilfinger

As highlighted in this previous post, in December 2013 German-based Bilfinger paid approximately $32 million to resolve an FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in Nigeria.  The enforcement action was resolved via a three-year deferred prosecution agreement.

As noted in the previous post, Bilfinger’s CEO described the conduct at issue as “events from the distant past.”

From the not-so distant past, Bilfinger recently announced:

“Bilfinger received internal information last year indicating that there may have been violations of the Group’s compliance regulations in connection with orders for the supply of monitor walls for security control centres in several large municipalities in Brazil. The company immediately launched a comprehensive investigation. The allegation relates to suspected bribery payments from employees of a Bilfinger company in Brazil to public officials and employees of state companies.”

See here for a follow-up announcement from the company.

As a foreign company, Bilfinger is only subject to the FCPA’s anti-bribery violations to the extent the payment scheme involves a U.S. nexus (as was alleged in the prior Bilfinger FCPA enforcement action).

IBM

Canadian media reports:

“Seven people, including Revenue Quebec employees and officials with computer companies IBM and EBR, were [recently] arrested … in connection with an alleged corruption scheme aimed at obtaining a government IT contract worth $24 million.Two Revenue Quebec employees, Hamid Iatmanene and Jamal El Khaiat, stand accused of providing privileged information about an upcoming government contract to a consortium made up of IBM and Quebec company Informatique EBR Inc.”

As highlighted here, in 2000 IBM resolved an FCPA enforcement action.

As highlighted here, in 2011 IBM resolved another FCPA enforcement action.  This enforcement action was filed in federal court (back in the day when the SEC actually filed FCPA enforcement actions in federal court vs. its preferred in-house method now) and Judge Richard Leon was concerned about the settlement process.  As highlighted here, Judge Leon approved the settlement, but his July 2013 final order states, among other things:

“[For a two year period IBM is required to submit annual reports] to the Commission and this Court describing its efforts to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), and to report to the Commission and this Court immediately upon learning it is reasonably likely that IBM has violated the FCPA in connection with either improper payments to foreign officials to obtain or retain business or any fraudulent books and records entries …””

According to media reports, Judge Leon stated: “if there’s another violation over the next two years, it won’t be a happy day.”

Quotable

In this Law360 article, Richard Grime (former Assistant Director of Enforcement at the SEC and current partner at Gibson Dunn) states regarding recent alleged FCPA violations.

“It’s not that you couldn’t intellectually [conceive of] the violation. It’s that the government is sort of probing every area where there is an interaction with government officials and then working backwards from there to see if there is a violation, as opposed to starting out with the statute … and what it prohibits.”

Given that most SEC FCPA enforcement actions are the result of voluntary disclosures, it is a curious statement.  Perhaps its companies, at the urging of FCPA Inc., that are probing every area where there is an interaction with government officials and then working backwards?

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As reported here:

“Greek authorities [recently] indicted 64 people to stand trial over years-old allegations of bribery involving Siemens AG, the German engineering giant … A probe of corporate dealings from 1992 to 2006 allegedly found that Greece had lost about 70 million euros in the sale of equipment from Siemens to Greek telephone operator Hellenic Telecommunications also known as OTE, which was still owned by the state at the beginning of that period … A panel of judges decided that those indicted, including both Greek and German nationals, should stand trial for bribery or money laundering. The list of suspects includes former Siemens and OTE officials.”

As noted here, Joe Kaeser (President and CEO of Siemens) reportedly stated:

“I really believe the country (Greece) can move to the future, rather than trying to find the solutions in the past.” He added that his company had a “dark history,” mentioning compliance issues. But he said it was not a “black and white story” when asked whether the indictments had been politically motivated by the current friction between the German and Greek governments. “Looking at the past doesn’t help the future because the past is the past.”

If the U.S. brings FCPA enforcement actions based on conduct that in some instances is 10 – 15 years old, it is not surprising that Greece is doing the same.  Yet is this right?

As the U.S. Supreme Court recently stated in Gabelli:

“Statute of limitations are intended to ‘promote justice by preventing surprises through the revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared.  They provide ‘security and stability to human affairs.  [They] are ‘vital to the welfare of society [and] ‘even wrongdoers are entitled to assume that their sins may be forgotten.’ […] It ‘would be utterly repugnant to the genius of our laws if actions for penalties could ‘be brought at any distance of time.’”

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Since day one, I called Morgan-Stanley’s so-called declination politically motivated.  (See here and here).

I am glad to see that FCPA commentator Michael Volkov recently joined the club.  Writing on the Garth Peterson / Morgan Stanley so-called declination, Volkov states:  “my intelligence on the case indicated that … [the] DOJ apparently wanted to demonstrate for political reasons that it could recognize a company’s compliance program to decline a case against a company.

A Future Foreign Official Teaser?

As recently reported by the Wall Street,

“China’s leadership is preparing to radically consolidate the country’s bloated state-owned sector, telling thousands of enterprises they need to rely less on state life support and get ready to list on public markets. […] Communist Party leaders plan to release broad guidelines in the next months for restructuring the country’s more than 100,000 state-owned enterprises, according to government officials and advisers with knowledge of the deliberations. […]  Strategically important industries such as energy, resources and telecommunications are marked for consolidation, the officials and advisers say. The merged entities would then be reorganized as asset-investment firms, with a mandate to make sure they run more like commercial operations than arms of the government. Upper management will be under orders to maximize returns and prepare many of the companies for eventual listing on stock markets, these people say.”

In U.S. v. Esquenazi, the 11th Circuit concluded that  an “instrumentality” under the FCPA is an “entity controlled by the government of a foreign country that performs a function the controlling government treats as its own.” The Court recognized that what “constitutes control and what constitutes a function the government treats as its own are fact-bound questions” and, without seeking to list all “factors that might prove relevant,” the court did list “some factors that may be relevant” in deciding issues of control and function.

As to control, the 11^th Circuit listed the following factors:

“[whether] the foreign government’s formal designation of that entity; whether the government has a majority interest in the entity; the government’s ability to hire and fire the entity’s principals; the extent to which the entity’s profits, if any, go directly into the governmental fisc, and, by the same token, the extent to which the government funds the entity if it fails to break even; and the length of time these indicia have existed.”

As to function, the 11^th Circuit listed the following factors:

“whether the entity has a monopoly over the function it exists to carry out; whether the government subsidizes the costs associated with the entity providing services; whether the entity provides services to the public at large in the foreign country; and whether the public and the government of that foreign country generally perceive the entity to be performing a governmental function.”

Have fun applying this test should China’s proposed changes go forward.

Brazil Update

My own cents regarding Brazil’s recent implementation of regulations regarding certain features of its Clean Companies Act (a law which provides for only civil and administrative liability of corporate entities for alleged acts of bribery) is that the regulations are a yawner for any company that is already acting consistent with FCPA best practices.

Yet, if you feel the urge to read up on Brazil’s recent regulations, comprehensive coverage can be found here from Debevoise & Plimpton and here from FCPAmericas.

For the Reading Stack

A thoughtful article here from Alexandra Wrage (President of Trace) regarding the “cult of the imperfect.”  It states:

“Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt is credited with saving thousands of lives in Britain during the worst days of World War II after developing Chain Home, a low-frequency radar system able to detect aircraft from about 90 miles away. He openly encouraged what he called the “cult of the imperfect” among his team. He knew that Britain didn’t need the best possible radar system in five years; the country needed a viable radar system urgently. Immediately. Watson-Watt, who was knighted shortly after the Battle of Britain, is said to have instructed his team to strive for the third-best option, because “the second-best comes too late . . . the best never comes.

[…]

Perfect due diligence risk assessments never come. And even second-best may come too late. Just get started. You’ll see more protections and benefits from good (for now) than perfect (some day, maybe . . .).”

Sound advice that I agree with and completely consistent with Congressional intent in enacting the FCPA’s internal controls provisions and even prior enforcement agency guidance.

Problem is, the DOJ and SEC wear rose-colored glasses, including as to conduct years ago, and if a company is acting consistent with FCPA best practices 99% of the time, that means 1% of the time they are not.

*****

A good weekend to all. On Wisconsin!

Have FCPA Settlement Amounts Increased … Just Because?

This post returns to an issue previously highlighted in this prior post –  “FCPA Settlements Have Come a Long Way In a Short Amount of Time.”

Again, the question is posed: have FCPA settlement amounts increased … just because?

Under the advisory Sentencing Guidelines, the following general formula is used to calculate an advisory fine range in an FCPA enforcement action.

• The starting point under the Guidelines is the base offense level relevant to the conduct at issue.
• This base offense level can be increased based on the value of the benefit received from the improper conduct.  This results in a total offense level and a base fine amount under the Guidelines.
• From there, a business organization’s culpability score is calculated based on a number of factors including: the number of employees in the organization; whether high-level personnel were involved in or condoned the improper conduct; prior criminal history; whether the organization had a pre-existing compliance and ethics program; voluntary disclosure; cooperation; and acceptance of responsibility.
• A business organization’s culpability score then yields a multiplier ratio (such as 1.4 to 2.8), that is then applied to the base fine amount, which then yields an advisory fine range.
• The DOJ then selects a number based on that fine range (and often times below the fine range) that the business organization then agrees to pay to resolve its alleged FCPA scrutiny.

Set forth below is a comparison between the DOJ enforcement action against Siemens in 2008 (which set a record for the largest total FCPA settlement of all time $800 million ($450 million DOJ component and a $350 million SEC component)) and the DOJ enforcement action against Alstom in 2014 (the largest DOJ only FCPA settlement of all-time).

As highlighted by the above DOJ calculations, the Siemens enforcement action yielded a much higher sentencing guidelines range compared to the recent Alstom action.

Yet, the recent Alstom action yielded a much higher criminal fine amount.

DOJ criminal fine amounts ought not be influenced by whether there is a related enforcement action by the SEC (which happened in Siemens, but not in Alstom), but even if DOJ criminal fine amounts are so influenced, the fact remains that Alstom was still punished more significantly (compared to the guidelines range) than Siemens even though the conduct at issue was less egregious.

Another variable that could impact DOJ fine amounts is the existence of a foreign law enforcement action and resulting fines and penalties.  Yet, such an occurrence was present in both the Siemens and Alstom actions.

The above comparison between Siemens (2008) and Alstom (2014) once again raises the question of whether FCPA settlement amounts have increased … just because?

Perhaps you have noticed this general trend in other areas as well where billion settlements are seemingly becoming the new norm.

In a 2013 speech SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher noted:

“[T]he amounts of the penalties that the SEC imposes against corporations today are eye-popping and likely would have shocked the legislators who voted for the Remedies Act and the Commission that sought penalty authority from Congress.”

As to the 2013 JPMorgan enforcement action ($13 billion), as noted in this Wall Street Journal article, the company’s top lawyer asked at an event “at what point does this [record-setting fines] stop.”  As Professor Peter Henning noted in this New York Times DealBook column regarding the JPMorgan matter:

“A standard part of enforcement actions against companies these days is the multimillion-dollar – or even multibillion-dollar – penalty. What can be perplexing is figuring out how those penalties were determined, and whether they have much if any direct relationship to either the gains realized from the violations or the harm inflicted.”

Indeed, at the same event discussed above, a government official acknowledged that the government’s application of fines in legal settlements “is more art than science.”

Spot-on.

In many cases. even though advisory Sentencing Guidelines ranges are presented, there is little rhyme or reason to how FCPA settlement amounts are calculated. When a NPA is used to resolve an FCPA enforcement action, the ultimate fine amount and how it as calculated is not transparent.  Even with corporate DPAs and plea agreements, there remains little transparency regarding FCPA criminal fine amounts, particularly as to the value of the benefit allegedly received through the improper payment.  The DOJ simply cites a number.

As noted in this prior post, in 2012 the Supreme Court held in Southern Union that any fact that substantially increases a criminal defendant’s fine amount must be provable to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.  As noted in the prior post however, the Supreme Court’s decision was great in theory, but it is rare for anything connected to a corporate FCPA enforcement action to be provable to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is only a matter of time before an FCPA settlement amount starts with a “b” as in billion.

If a billion dollar FCPA enforcement action is what the conduct at issue warrants … fine.  But if it is just because, this is a problem and a significant public policy concern as even alleged wrongdoers have due process rights.

Friday Roundup

Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index, monitor issues, scrutiny alert, Chinese SOEs, SEC press releases, hot, and for the reading stack.  It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Transparency International’s Latest Corruption Perceptions Index

Transparency International, a global civil society organization dedicated to the fight against corruption, released recently the 20th edition of its Corruption Perceptions Index (“CPI”).  (See here for TI’s release).  As stated by TI, the CPI “measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide” and 175 countries are ranked with Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland (topping the list – i.e. low levels of perceived corruption) and South Sudan, Afghanistan, Sudan, North Korea and Somalia (on the bottom of the list – i.e. high levels of perceived corruption).

TI’s CPI is a popular tool on which many business organizations rank perceived risk, but query whether the CPI is a reliable or meaningful measure of the specific risks specific business organizations face when competing in the global marketplace?

For starters, perceptions are just that, perceptions.  To be sure, there are countless honest and ethical people living in Somalia just as there are countless dishonest and unethical people living in Denmark.  Moreover, at its core, FCPA risk is the function of specific business actors (employees and agents) coming into contact with specific foreign officials, in the context of specific foreign business conditions.  These risk points are often industry specific and within a country are often region specific.  None of these factors, or very few, are captured by the CPI.

Thus, while I enjoy each time this year looking at the CPI map, I don’t think it is a very useful tool for business organizations when adopting policies and procedures designed to minimize FCPA risk.

Monitor Issues

An interesting blurb here from Courthouse News Service.

“Siemens and a monitor charged with keeping watch over the German conglomerate’s compliance with a settlement agreement over federal corruption and bribery charges can fight to keep records of that agreement out of the hands of reporters, a federal judge ruled. (See 2014 WL 6817009). 100Reporters – a press outlet with a self-proclaimed mission to “cover corruption of all sorts” – sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act this past summer, seeking records of Siemens’ compliance with a 2008 settlement of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Siemens pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a precedent-setting $1.6 billion penalty to U.S. and EU authorities to settle charges that it routinely used bribes and slush funds to secure massive public works contracts around the world. Part of the settlement included four-year compliance monitoring by Dr. Theo Waigel, who was given broad access to Siemens’ confidential and commercially sensitive information and records to make annual reports to the Justice Department. The DOJ closed the compliance monitoring in 2012, determining that Siemens had “satisfied its obligations under the plea agreement.” After the Justice Department denied 100Reporters’ request for compliance monitoring documents – including the four annual reports from Waigel – and the group sued, Siemens and Waigel demanded to get involved, citing the right of intervention. For Siemens’ part, the company argued that the reports contained confidential and proprietary information not fit for public consumption. Waigel complained that his personal reputation – and the unfettered access of future compliance monitors – was on the line because he promised Siemens confidentiality while examining the company’s records and delivering his reports to the Justice Department.  Both Siemens and Waigel have a legal interest in fighting 100Reporters’ FOIA request, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras held in a 31-page ruling issued Wednesday. Specifically, Contreras dismissed 100Reporters’ claims that Siemens, Waigel and the DOJ are all fighting from the same legal position. “Requiring Siemens to monitor the DOJ’s litigation posture from the sidelines until Siemens disagrees with a decision by the agency is inefficient and impractical; indeed, Siemens likely would have limited, if any, insight into the DOJ’s strategy during the litigation, and once Siemens did learn of a hypothetical shift in the DOJ’s position, such as a decision to release a specific category of materials, it might be too late for Siemens to undue any damage done,” Contreras wrote. Furthermore, not allowing Siemens and Waigel to intervene now – and forcing them to wait months or years until the Justice Department has done its withholding analysis – would put them both in danger of missing federal filing deadlines, the judge said. The potential injury to Siemens if the documents are released is both “particularized and sufficiently imminent,” Contreras wrote. “It is not surprising, then, that 100Reporters cannot cite a single FOIA case in which a court denied on standing grounds the application of a prospective intervenor whose own confidential materials were the clear subject of the FOIA request,” he added. Contreras also rejected calls by 100Reporters to limit Siemens’ involvement solely to FOIA exemption 4, which bars release of confidential and commercially sensitive information. “A more functional and practical approach is required, and fatally, 100Reporters fails to offer any concrete or realistic consequences to this litigation from Siemens’s (or Waigel’s) intervention that might require the court to impose a limitation on the scope of the defenses that an intervenor may raise as this case, which still is in its infancy, proceeds to the merits,” Contreras wrote. The judge refused 100Reporters’ claims that allowing Siemens and Waigel to get involved would unnecessarily delay the proceedings, advising the group in a footnote “raise such concerns then,” if and when any delays occur.”

The California Lawyer goes in-depth in an article titled “The Secret Life of a Corporate Monitor.”

“Without naming the subjects of his monitoring, Dan Ray talked generally about the highly secretive world of government-appointed corporate monitors, where progress reports are confidential, judges rarely get involved, and the DOJ alone determines whether corporations have complied with terms of the agreements. Monitors are not government employees or agents, and they do not contract with or receive payment from the government. Fees generally are negotiated between the corporation and the monitor.”

Through some basic internet research, it is not that difficult to figure out which companies Ray monitored.  (See here, here and here).

Scrutiny Alert

The Financial Times reports:

“In a Florida court on Tuesday, a judge granted a request by US prosecutors to seize an ice cream cooler, a walk-in freezer, dozens of other pieces of catering equipment and three properties belonging to a woman called Mamadie Touré. It was just one of a ceaseless stream of such requests, through which the authorities seek forfeiture of what they say are ill-gotten assets. But this was no ordinary woman and no ordinary case. Ms Touré is the widow of Lansana Conté, a dictator who ruled the resource-rich but dirt poor west African state of Guinea for 24 years before his death in 2008. And US prosecutors’ interest in Ms Touré runs to much more than a few refrigerators and some Jacksonville real estate. Their court filing in the forfeiture request spells out the details of a two-year US investigation into one of the most wide-ranging cases of alleged corruption in recent years.  Prosecutors alleged in that filing, lodged last week and seen by the Financial Times, that Ms Touré received bribes totalling $5.3m to help a mining company win iron-ore rights in Guinea. The rights in question were to exploit the northern half of a hillside called Simandou, considered the planet’s richest virgin deposit of iron ore. The company involved is not named in the filing. But references to documents published in a Guinean inquiry, to the timing of the award of the mining rights and to a separate criminal case make it obvious that the company is BSG Resources, the mining arm of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s family conglomerate.”

Chinese SOEs

An interesting article recently in the Wall Street Journal.  According to the article:

“At the end of 2013, China had about 155,000 firms owned by central, provincial and local governments, according to the Ministry of Finance.  Beijing itself directly controls less than 120 of the biggest and most strategically significant industrial companies, which are responsible for building the world’s largest nuclear reactors and most extensive high speed rail network, buying up mining and agricultural resources overseas, and spreading Chinese goodwill with infrastructure projects across the developing world. […] Many smaller state-owned firms make goods with no obvious strategic significance, like spirits and toothpaste …”.

The article contains an interesting chart comparing six China SOEs with U.S. counterparts.  According to the chart, the six SOEs have approximately 2.6 million employees.

SEC Press Releases

Russell Ryan (King & Spalding and former assistant director of enforcement at the SEC ) returns to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page with this dandy piece titled “Get the SEC Out of the PR Business.”  He begins:

“Press releases are par for the course when the Securities and Exchange Commission files a case in federal court that it must later prove to a judge or jury. But the agency is increasingly shunting cases into its own administrative proceedings, where it initiates the prosecution and ultimately decides guilt or innocence—along with the severity of any sanctions—subject to only limited review in court. Given the SEC’s peculiar quasi-judicial role in these cases, you might think the agency would refrain from gratuitously stoking prehearing publicity against the accused. Think again. The SEC now routinely issues press releases when it files charges in administrative cases it will eventually decide. This practice calls into question the agency’s ability to decide those cases fairly and impartially.”

[…]

“SEC releases also stray beyond a fair and accurate summary of agency action. Many confuse what happened by asserting—often in the headline or lead sentence—that the SEC “charged” the accused with wrongdoing. But at this initial stage only SEC staff employees, typically from the enforcement division, have “charged” any wrongdoing. Commissioners, at least in theory, have merely scheduled a hearing to determine whether the employees can prove their charges—a determination the commissioners are supposed to make after an administrative judge conducts the hearing and makes a preliminary decision. Not surprisingly, media reports often reinforce the misperception that SEC commissioners are prosecuting these cases rather than deciding them. One of the most troubling features of SEC prehearing press releases is the partiality they betray in favor of agency prosecutors over the accused. In virtually all cases, the SEC allows its prosecuting employees not only to ghostwrite the official press release but also to insert gratuitous quotations that embellish the formal accusations with more colorful words and phrases like “tricks,” “calculated fraud,” “reaping substantial profits,” and “choosing profits over compliance.” The accused is never extended similar courtesies. When the SEC initiates enforcement action administratively rather than in court, it should embrace its primary role as impartial decision maker. That means resisting the urge to stoke prehearing publicity and maintaining strict neutrality in both fact and appearance. By failing to do so, the SEC risks having administrative fines and other sanctions swept aside if a court someday concludes, quite reasonably, that agency press releases plausibly suggest prejudgment of cases or lack of impartiality. The agency may consider that scenario unlikely. But given its determination to prosecute more cases administratively, that may not be a risk worth taking.”

Hot

You probably already knew that FCPA and related practices are hot.  But just in case you need another reminder, see here.  The latest edition of “What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession” contains the following under the “hot” category.

“Anti-corruption. Larger U.S. firms continue to increase enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, leading to more prosecutions. The U.K., China, Brazil and Canada have all enacted anti-bribery laws in the past few years and are now increasing investigations.”

You can elevate your FCPA knowledge and practical experience by attending the FCPA Institute in Miami (Jan. 12-13, 2015). Join other firm lawyers, in-house counsel, auditing professionals and others already registered for the FCPA Institute – Miami by clicking here to register.  CLE credit is available.

Reading Stack

The lastest edition of Debevoise & Plimpton’s always informative FCPA Report is here.

From Foley & Lardner attorney Aaron Murphy and Daniel Seltzer (Senior Director, Anticorruption for Accenture) “The End of Whac-A-Mole Compliance:  A Global Approach to Anti-Corruption Actions.”

*****

A good weekend to all.

World Cup Puts Focus on Complex Compliance Issues In Brazil

Today’s post is from Gregory Paw (Pepper Hamilton LLP).

*****

Tomorrow afternoon, Brazil begins what many hope will be a month-long showcase of “joga bonito” – the Brazilian passion for football summarized by Pelé as “play beautifully” – with the opening game of the 2014 World Cup pitting the host team against Croatia in São Paulo.  Yet the days leading to the opening have been filled with anxious scenes of subway strikes by groups of laborers, social advocates and students, and the accompanying snarls of traffic clogging the streets of the nation’s biggest city.  The protests are not as large as those of last spring, but nonetheless put into context the issues of the past year as Brazil adjusts to a post-boom economy and debates the public spending priorities that favored sports venues over other public works projects.  All of these events are of importance to compliance professionals watching the Brazilian business landscape for important anti-corruption trends and a better understanding of the current risk environment.

The past year has seen passage of landmark anti-corruption legislation, and the growing pains that can come with implementing a law that ushers important change.  Brazil currently lacks a centralized enforcement infrastructure for its powerful new anti-corruption law.  Brazil’s 27 states and its municipalities, as well as each branch of national government, all can launch investigations and render interpretations on open issues under the new law, such as the critical issue of whether any liability cap exists.  The inevitable inconsistencies will make compliance an ongoing challenge.

Equally important is the persistent culture of corruption that continues to dominate the Brazilian business news.  Many of the recent stories have focused on infrastructure projects in preparation for the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.  Cost overruns for Brazil’s 12 World Cup host stadiums are soaring.  For example, an audit from the Court of Accounts of the Brazilian Federal District demonstrated a near-doubling from the $312 million 2012 estimated cost, with overpriced construction work alone accounting for $196 million of this overrun.  Political donations from connected companies “are making corruption in this country even worse and making it increasingly difficult to fight,” said an Audit Court arbiter in recent local press reports.  “These politicians are working for those who financed campaigns.”  At least a dozen other federal investigations are underway.

The problems are not limited to sports stadiums.  A scandal involving as many as 15 public transportation systems is said to have revealed corruption by several multi-national companies and inflated project costs in an area of vital public need.  The multi-nationals mentioned as part of the probe, Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier, have denied wrongdoing and pledged cooperation.  But in January 2014, a federal court banned Siemens from bidding on new government work, and a public prosecutor in São Paulo is said to have sought to cancel Alstom’s corporate registration.

Touching deeper to the core of the Brazilian economy are corruption investigations at Petrobras, the state-run oil and gas company.  Swimming under a mountain of debt and declining stock value, Petrobras has launched an internal review of alleged bribery by a Dutch company that serviced off-shore oil rigs.  The Brazilian Congress also has launched a probe into two deals that have turned very expensive – one involving the purchase of a refinery in Texas and the other involving a refinery in the northeastern Brazilian coastal town of Recife.  Both deals cost many times more than their expected prices.  Petrobras’ president recently met federal police personally to turn over company files pursuant to a court order.  Petrobras says the cost overruns come from insufficient infrastructure in Brazil’s poor-but-growing northeast, but critics focus on mismanagement and an alleged culture of graft as these issues play out in advance of a presidential election in October.  The arrest in March of the former head of the company’s refining and supply unit in a money laundering probe has added to the swirl of rumors.  For her part, President Dilma Rousseff – also the former chair of Petrobras – has defended the company, explaining in April 2014 local press reports that “Petrobras will never be stained with any wrongdoing.  Whatever needs to be investigated will be investigated with maximum rigor.”

Against this backdrop, Brazilian economic growth has slowed by more than half of its peak 2010 rate, and a March 2014 poll by a Brazilian news organization found that more than two-thirds of the population thought corruption was lower during Brazil’s time of dictatorship.  Perhaps part of that feeling comes from the current greater media transparency on corruption probes.  But companies operating in Brazil can expect that the focus on anti-corruption issues will only continue to remain a complicated compliance challenge.  Most important is a continuing focus on compliance fundamentals:

• Leadership setting clear expectations on ethics and compliance
• Risk awareness, coupled with controls designed to address those risks
• Due diligence and monitoring of business partners
• Nurturing the compliance commitment through training and communications
• Promptly follow up if potential issues arise

These fundamental steps will best protect companies operating in Brazil, where hope runs high that the attention from the World Cup will highlight the Brazilian spirit and creativity which has proven so resilient through past eras of change.