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The U.K. Deferred Prosecution Agreement Regime: Aligning Rhetoric And Reality

By on May 5, 2021 in Airbus, Deferred Prosecution Agreements, Guest Posts, Serious Fraud Office, SFO, U.K. Bribery Act, United Kingdom
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A guest post from David Corker (a Partner at Corker Binning Corker in London).

The cornerstone of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (‘DPA’) regime in our jurisdiction is the centrality of the court. At the start of both his preliminary and final judgments delivered in the first DPA in 2015, Leveson P intended that his affirmation of this principle would become, as indeed it has, axiomatic. Almost every subsequent judgment endorsing a DPA has recited his words about the indispensable judicial role. Opening her 32-page judgment concerning the Airbus DPA in 2020[1], for example, Sharp P (Sir Brian’s successor as head of the Queen’s Bench Division) reproduced (paras 7 and 8) the relevant passages in full.

For this article this extract provides sufficient colour:

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Friday Roundup

By on March 19, 2021 in Braskem SA, COVID-19, ENI, KBR, Ng Lap Seng, Royal Dutch Shell, Serious Fraud Office, SFO, Toyota, United Kingdom
Roundup

Acquitted, scrutiny alert, under scrutiny again, across the pond, and compassionate release. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.

Acquittals

The so-called conventional wisdom in the U.S. is that business organizations under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scrutiny (particularly publicly-traded corporations) simply can’t put the DOJ (or SEC for that matter) to its burden of proof in an enforcement action because it is too risky and may result in a “death sentence” for the company.

As highlighted in this post, the conventional wisdom is b.s., but the narrative still persists. In other countries however, corporations more frequently put government enforcement agencies to their burdens of proof by making factual and legal arguments.

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Potpourri

By on November 2, 2020 in Airline Services Limited, FCPA Sentences, Mark Lambert, Netherlands, Ng Lap Seng, Serious Fraud Office, United Kingdom
Potpourri

Commercial Bribery

The United Kingdom Bribery Act is a more comprehensive statute than the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Unlike the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions which has a required “foreign official” element, the U.K. Bribery Act – including its so-called Section 7 “failure to prevent bribery” offense – is capable of capturing commercial bribery as well.

Last week the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office announced a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Airline Services Limited (ASL) “for three counts of failing to prevent bribery arising from the company’s use of an agent to win three contracts … to refit commercial airliners for Lufthansa.”

According to the DPA, “at the time [between 2011 and 2013], notwithstanding the recent passing of the Bribery Act, ASL had made negligible efforts to educate its staff or to introduce processes to identify and counteract occasions of bribery.”

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The UK Serious Fraud Office 2020 Deferred Prosecution Agreement Guidance: Something Old and Something New

By on October 30, 2020 in Deferred Prosecution Agreements, Guest Posts, Serious Fraud Office, SFO, United Kingdom
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A guest post from Gibson Dunn attorneys Sacha Harber-Kelly and Steve Melrose.

Mr. Harber-Kelly is a former prosecutor at the SFO and was appointed to lead the SFO’s engagement in the cross-governmental working group which devised the DPA legislative framework, and subsequently appointed to draft the DPA Code of Practice, which sets out how prosecutors will operate the DPA regime.

On October 23, 2020, the UK Serious Fraud Office published a new chapter from its internal Operational Handbook, which it describes as “comprehensive guidance on how we approach Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs), and how we engage with companies where a DPA is a prospective outcome.”

At the time of its publication, the Director of the SFO, Lisa Osofsky, remarked, “Publishing this guidance will provide further transparency on what we expect from companies looking to co-operate with us.” Director Osofsky’s full remarks are here.

The 2020 DPA Guidance (“the Guidance”) is here.

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Potpourri

By on July 29, 2020 in Basil Al Jarah, Edward Thiessen, FCPA Sentences, Och-Ziff Capital, Och-Ziff Capital Management, Restitution, Sculptor Capital Management, Serious Fraud Office, SFO, Stephen Whiteley, Unaoil, United Kingdom, Victims, Ziad Akle
Potpourri

Agreement in Principle

As highlighted in prior posts here and here in 2016 hedge fund Och-Ziff resolved a $412 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action concerning improper business practices in various African countries.

As highlighted in this 2018 post, former shareholders of Canadian mining company Africo Resources Ltd. (“Claimants”) sough restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act for losses allegedly incurred as a result of Och-Ziff’s bribery of corrupt officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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