Judge In Adani Case Says Not So Fast
In 2024, the DOJ criminally charged various individuals in connection with an alleged Indian bribery scheme. (See here for the prior post).
Gautam Adani (a citizen of India and founder of the Adani Group which includes numerous portfolio companies including Adani Green Energy – and Indian energy company) was charged with securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
Sagar Adani (a citizen of India and Gautam Adani’s nephew and Executive Director of Adani Green’s Board of Directors) was charged with securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
Vneet Jaain (a citizen of India who was the CEO of Adani Green and who is currently the Managing Director of Adani Green’s Board of Directors) was charged with securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
Slumbering Individual Enforcement Actions
Most in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act space learn when the DOJ announces criminal FCPA charges against individuals. Thereafter, the tendency (including by myself) is to sort of forget about many of the individual cases.
However, recently I examined the dockets for all individuals criminally charged with FCPA offenses since January 1, 2017 and was surprised to learn that a meaningful percentage of these cases are slumbering with no substantive activity recorded in quite some time.
Thus, when viewing DOJ FCPA individual enforcement action statistics it is important to keep in mind that many of these cases are slumbering and are not being actively prosecuted.
“Compliance Officer” / Dad
Yesterday was Father’s Day and for the eleventh straight year I publish this post (with updates) as the “compliance officer” / Dad journey continues and our twin boys turned 18 this year and recently graduated from high school.
Father is just one of my titles when it comes to the boys. Coach and Compliance Officer being a few others. As to the later, Co-Compliance Officer along with my wife is the more accurate title (I wonder what the “Compliance 2.0” [or are we on to 3.0 now] folks would say about this structure)?
Father’s Day is a chance to reflect and to be sure being a Dad has informed my view of many things including compliance. When you really think about, compliance and parenting have a lot in common.
A Collection Of Peirce’s Greatest Hits
This site has been a big fan of SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Peirce is soon to leave her position and this prior post titled “Peirce Out” highlighted a speech by the same name she delivered in which criticized various aspects of SEC enforcement – including as to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
This post collects Peirce’s greatest hits.
For starters, throughout her tenure, Peirce has objected (in whole or in part) to the majority of corporate FCPA enforcement actions she has voted on while on the Commission. (See here, here, here, here, and here).
An Uninformed, False Narrative
Imagine being so uniformed and/or so committed to spinning false narratives that you publish an article today asserting that the Justice Department has “essentially shut[…] down the pursuit of cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
That is was David Corn (the Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones and an on-air analyst for MSNBC) did.
However, informed individuals (including FCPA Professor readers) will recognize the following DOJ FCPA developments over the past approximate ten months.
An appeal was filed in the Second Circuit by an FCPA defendant after being found guilty at trial. (See here). No doubt the DOJ will be responding to this brief and the issues presented … in other words the DOJ will continue to pursue this case.