This Week On FCPA Professor
FCPA Professor has been described as “the Wall Street Journal concerning all things FCPA-related,” and “the most authoritative source for those seeking to understand and apply the FCPA.”
Set forth below are the topics discussed this week on FCPA Professor.
This post goes into the archives to highlight FCPA news from 10 years ago.
FCPA Institute – Zoom (May 16-18)
Since 2014, the FCPA Institute has elevated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act knowledge and practical skills of professionals from around the world.
The inaugural FCPA Institute – Zoom was offered in November 2020 to a worldwide audience and several additional Zoom events have followed. The next FCPA Institute – Zoom will be offered on May 16-18.
The FCPA Institute – Zoom will consist of 9 hours of integrated and cohesive instruction (each day from 9 a.m. – noon central) led by Professor Koehler, an FCPA expert with FCPA practice and teaching experience.
From The Archives
Every so often it is interesting to go back into the archives and this post rewinds ten years to Spring 2013.
Enjoy the trip down FCPA memory lane.
Philips
A Netherlands-based company with shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange was the parent of a group of companies including a Polish subsidiary that sold medical equipment to Polish healthcare facilities. Between six and fourteen years prior to the enforcement “in at least 30 transactions” employees of the Polish subsidiary, without any mention of parent company knowledge or approval, “made improper payments to public officials of Polish healthcare facilities to increase the likelihood that public tenders for the sale of medical equipment would be awarded” to the subsidiary.
An Informative Read
This prior post highlighted the recent acquittal of Damodar Arapakota (founder and former chief executive of Toronto-based Imex Systems) by a Canadian judge of a charge of bribery of a foreign public official under Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA)
The actual decision by the Canadian judge (see here) makes for an interesting read in that the CFPOA (while not a carbon copy of the FCPA) does contain many of the same general elements.
While touching upon other CFPOA elements such as mens rea and the meaning of advantage or benefit under the CFPOA, the main reasons the judge found Arapakota not guilty was due to the lack of nexus between the advantage or benefit (travel expenses) given to the foreign official and the discretionary act performed by the foreign official as well as the judge’s conclusion that the discretionary act performed by the foreign official did not satisfy the CFPOA’s “obtain or retain an advantage in business” element.
The logic, reasoning and rationale of the decision are all FCPA relevant.
This Week On FCPA Professor
FCPA Professor has been described as “the Wall Street Journal concerning all things FCPA-related,” and “the most authoritative source for those seeking to understand and apply the FCPA.”
Set forth below are the topics discussed this week on FCPA Professor.
As discussed here, Roger Ng (a former Goldman Sachs managing director who was found guilty at trial of FCPA and related charges for paying bribes to various Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials in connection with Malaysia’s state-owned and state-controlled investment development company and sentenced to 10 years in prison) was also ordered to forfeit $35.1 million.