Friday Roundup
Another individual defendant added to the broker-dealer enforcement action, scrutiny alert, want to open a building in China open to the public?, and additional boondoggle specifics. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Additional Individual Defendant Added to the Broker-Dealer Enforcement Action
This previous post highlighted the SEC examination that led to DOJ and SEC charges (including FCPA charges) against Tomas Clarke (a Direct Access Partners (“DAP”) Executive Vice President who worked out of the company’s Miami office) and Alejandro Hurtado (a back-office employee of DAP in Miami). The enforcement action is based on alleged improper payments to Maria Gonzalez (V.P. of Finance / Executive Manager of Finance and Funds Administration at Bandes, an alleged Venezuelan state-owned banking entity that acts as the financial agent of the state to finance economic development projects).
Earlier this week, the DOJ announced here that Ernesto Lujana (a managing partner at DAP and a branch manager of its Miami offices) was arrested and charged (see here for the criminal complaint) in connection with the same alleged bribery scheme. As noted in the DOJ’s release “Lujan was charged with one count each of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), violation of the FCPA, conspiracy to violate the Travel Act and violation of the Travel Act [as well as] conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering.
Like in the previous enforcement action, the SEC also brought an enforcement action (see here for the complaint) against Lujana. In this SEC release, Andrew Calamari (Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office) stated as follows. “For a scheme this bold to succeed, it required the sneaky collaboration of several individuals including the head of the Miami office. Lujan and the others may have believed they were covering their tracks, but the SEC’s exam and enforcement teams unraveled their fraud.”
Scrutiny Alert
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in this article that GlaxcoSmithKline “is investigating allegations from an anonymous tipster that it sales staff in China was involved in widespread bribery of doctors to prescribe drugs, in some cases for unauthorized uses, between 2004 and 2010.”
The article reported as follows. “According to e-mails and other documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the tipster has alleged that Glaxo’s China sales staff provided doctors with speaking fees, cash payments, lavish dinners and all-expenses-paid trips in return for prescribing the drug firm’s products.” As reported in the WSJ article, a Glaxo spokesman confirmed that the company is investigating the allegations, but that after thoroughly investigating “each and every claim” from the anonymous source, the company “has found no evidence of corruption or bribery in or China business.”
The WSJ article further noted that “in 2010 Glaxo disclosed it had been contacted by the Justice Department and the SEC about its overseas operations as part of a wider FCPA investigation into pharmaceutical industry practices abroad.”
As noted in this prior year in review post, in 2012 50% of corporate FCPA enforcement actions involved, in whole or in part, foreign health care providers (such as physicians, nurses, mid-wives, lab personnel, etc.). See here for a prior post on the origins and prominence of this enforcement theory.
Want to Open a Building in China Open to the Public?
This recent article in the South China Morning Post reminded me of the many business barriers (including arcane and complex licensing, certification and inspection requirements) which often funnel companies seeking to do business in a foreign country into an arbitrary world of low-paying civil servants who frequently supplement their meager salaries through payments condoned in the host country.
The article states, in pertinent part, as follows.
“To obtain a fire-safety certificate from a local fire department, a business owner must pass five ‘checkpoints’ in a complicated and lengthy administrative process. Each checkpoint is guarded by officials in charge of site inspections and reviewing construction blueprints, equipment and contingency plans. Bribes considerably expedite the process that officials might otherwise draw out for weeks, months or years. Bribes range from a few thousand yuan to hundreds of thousands, per official, depending on their rank and the size of the project. But money isn’t everything – some officials must be wined and dined or given luxury cigarettes. Others request the services of prostitutes. […] Salaries of firefighters are quite low – about 3,400 yuan (HK$4,300) a month in Shanghai – and many come from poor or rural families, as the job hazards dissuade many people from joining. […] However, competition for administrative posts within fire departments was fierce, and only those with strong connections or family influence would stand a chance of winning non-frontline jobs where the real money was made.”
Additional Boondoggle Specifics
This recent Friday roundup detailed boondoggle specifics concerning Wal-Mart’s FCPA scrutiny and related investigation. As noted here, Jeff Gearheart, the executive officer overseeing global compliance for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., told analysts last week that “300 legal and accounting professionals have logged more than 100,000 hours toward FCPA issues.”
*****
A good weekend to all.
What Is A Board’s Responsibility For Compliance?
A guest post today from Thomas Fox who runs the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog.
*****
“The nightmare of every corporate director is to wake up to find out that the company of the Board he or she sits on is on the front page of the New York Times (NYT) for alleged illegal conduct. This nightmare came true for the Directors of Wal-Mart when the New York Times, in an article entitled “Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle”, alleged that Wal-Mart’s Mexican subsidiary had engaged in bribery of Mexican governmental officials and that the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, had covered up any investigations into these allegations.
Recently the NYT reported that shareholders were asking questions of the Wal-Mart Board regarding its response these allegations. In a story, entitled “More Dissent in a Store Over Wal-Mart Bribery Scandal”, Stephanie Clifford reported Wal-Mart shareholders are still asking questions of the Board regarding its role in the ongoing scandal. Some of these questions include “whether the company is holding current and former executives financially responsible for breaching company policies” and concerns about the company’s supply chain vendors. This shareholder dissatisfaction led several groups of large shareholders to indicate that they would vote against the company’s current Board of Directors at its annual shareholder meeting.
Clifford quoted from a report by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy advising firm, which said that investors have also complained about “being in the dark about the nature and extent of the alleged violations (and knowledge of them within the company)” and the company’s “timetable for completion of its investigation and disclosure of its results.” There were also questions raised about the remediation efforts of Wal-Mart. The ISS report went on to add that “Shareholders should vote against these directors to send a clear message to the board that such poor oversight does not come without repercussions.”
The publicity and costs to Wal-Mart have been well documented. On his FCPA Professor website, Professor Koehler has consistently stated that he views this scandal as largely a failure of corporate governance. In a post entitled, “Wal-Mart One Year Later” he said, “corporate governance, or lack thereof, is what made the NY Times April 2012 remarkable. This is the reason why Wal-Mart generated all the buzz it did a year ago this week and I’ve consistently held the view that the Wal-Mart story is a corporate governance sandwich with the FCPA as a mere condiment.” I thought about Professor Koehler’s observations on this failure in light of Clifford’s article and wondered what the Board’s legal obligations might be.
I. Some Case Law
As to the specific role of ‘Best Practices’ in the area of general compliance and ethics, one can look to Delaware corporate law for guidance. The case of In Re Caremark International Inc. Derivative Litigation 698 A.2d 959 (Del.1996) was the first case to hold that a Board’s obligation “includes a duty to attempt in good faith to assure that a corporate information and reporting system, which the board concludes is adequate, exists, and that failure to do so under some circumstances may, in theory at least, render a director liable for losses caused by non-compliance with applicable legal standards.” The Corporate Compliance Blog, in a post entitled “Caremark 101”, said that the Caremark case “addressed the board’s duty to oversee a corporation’s legal compliance efforts. As part of its duty to monitor, the Board must make good faith efforts to ensure that a corporation has adequate reporting and information systems. The opinion described this claim as “possibly the most difficult theory in corporation law upon which a plaintiff might hope to win a judgment,” with liability attaching only for “a sustained or systematic failure to exercise oversight” or “[a]n utter failure to attempt to ensure a reporting and information system.”
In the case of Stone v. Ritter 911 A.2d 362, 370 (Del. 2006), the Supreme Court of Delaware expanded on the Caremark decision by establishing two important principles. First, the Court held that the Caremark standard is the appropriate standard for director duties with respect to corporate compliance issues. Second, the Court found that there is no duty of good faith that forms a basis, independent of the duties of care and loyalty, for director liability. Rather, Stone v. Ritter holds that the question of director liability turns on whether there is a “sustained or systematic failure of the board to exercise oversight – such as an utter failure to attempt to assure a reasonable information and reporting system exists.”
Andrew J. Demetriou and Jessica T. Olmon, writing in the ABA Health Esource blog, said that “This standard aims to protect shareholders by ensuring that corporations will adopt reasonable programs to deter, detect and address violations of law and corporate policy, while absolving the Board from liability for corporate conduct so long as it has exercised reasonable responsibility with respect to the adoption and maintenance of a compliance and reporting system. Although the standard protects the Board, consistent with most jurisprudence under the business judgment rule, it also requires that the Board follow through to address problems of which it has notice and this may include adopting modifications to its compliance program to address emerging risks.”
Lastly, I recently heard Jeff Kaplan discuss the oversight obligations of the Board regarding the compliance function. In addition to the above cases, he discussed the case of Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System et al. v. David Pyott, et al., 2012 WL 2087205 (Del. Ch. June 11, 2012) (rev’d on other grounds, No. 380, 2012, 2013 WL 1364695 (Del. Apr. 4, 2013), which was a shareholder action that went forward against a Board based upon a claim that the Board knew of compliance risk based on the company’s business plan. The Delaware Court pointed out the possibility that “the appearance of formal compliance cloaked the reality of noncompliance, and directors who understood the difference between legal off-label sales and illegal off-label marketing continued to approve and oversee business plans that depended on illegal activity.” Kaplan believes that this case more generally, supports the need for risk-based oversight by a Board.
II. FCPA Guidance and US Sentencing Guidelines
A Board’s duty under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is well-known. In the Department of Justice / Securities and Exchange Commission FCPA Guidance, under the Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, there are two specific references to the obligations of a Board.
The first in Hallmark No. 1, entitled “Commitment from Senior Management and a Clearly Articulated Policy Against Corruption”, states “within a business organization, compliance begins with the board of directors and senior executives setting the proper tone for the rest of the company.”
The second is found under Hallmark No. 3 entitled “Oversight, Autonomy and Resources”, where it discusses that the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) should have “direct access to an organization’s governing authority, such as the board of directors and committees of the board of directors (e.g., the audit committee).”
Further, under the US Sentencing Guidelines, the Board must exercise reasonable oversight on the effectiveness of a company’s compliance program. The DOJ’s Prosecution Standards posed the following queries: (1) Do the Directors exercise independent review of a company’s compliance program? and (2) Are Directors provided information sufficient to enable the exercise of independent judgment?
Board failure to head this warning can lead to serious consequences. David Stuart, a senior attorney with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, noted that FCPA compliance issues can lead to personal liability for directors, as both the SEC and DOJ have been “very vocal about their interest in identifying the highest-level individuals within the organization who are responsible for the tone, culture, or weak internal controls that may contribute to, or at least fail to prevent, bribery and corruption”. He added that based upon the SEC’s enforcement action against two senior executives at Nature’s Sunshine Products, “under certain circumstances, I could see the SEC invoking the same provisions against audit committee members—for instance, for failing to oversee implementation of a compliance program to mitigate risk of bribery”. It would not be a far next step for the SEC to invoke the same provisions against audit committee members who do not actively exercise oversight of an ongoing compliance program.
There is one other issue regarding the Board and risk management, including FCPA risk management, which should be noted. It appears that the SEC desires Boards to take a more active role in overseeing the management of risk within a company. The SEC has promulgated Regulation SK 407 under which each company must make a disclosure regarding the Board’s role in risk oversight which “may enable investors to better evaluate whether the board is exercising appropriate oversight of risk.” If this disclosure is not made, it could be a securities law violation and subject the company, which fails to make it, to fines, penalties or profit disgorgement.
From the Delaware cases, I believe that a Board must not only have a corporate compliance program in place but actively oversee that function. Further, if a company’s business plan includes a high-risk proposition, there should be additional oversight. In other words, there is an affirmative duty to ask the tough questions. The specific obligations set out regarding the FCPA drive home these general legal obligations down to the specific level of the statute.
The Wal-Mart case has driven home the need for focused Board of Directors oversight of a company’s compliance program. But it is more than simply having a compliance program in place. The Board must exercise appropriate oversight of the compliance program and indeed the compliance function. The Board needs to ask the hard questions and be fully informed of the company’s overall compliance strategy going forward. If the Wal-Mart Board had fulfilled its legal obligations regarding compliance, the company might not have found itself on the front page of the New York Times.”
Friday Roundup
Boondoggle specifics, another DOJ enforcement official to FCPA Inc., scrutiny alert, across the pond, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Wal-Mart’s FCPA Expenses
Previous posts (here) and (here) have calculated Wal-Mart’s per working day FCPA related professional fees and expenses.
No wonder Wal-Mart’s first quarter professional fees and expenses equal approximately $1.16 million per working day. According to this recent article in India’s Economic Times, concerning just the India portion of Wal-Mart’s investigation:
“So far Greenberg Traurig and KPMG have spent 26,000 hours on consulting and shaping anti-corruption compliance programme for Bharti Walmart, which operates 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in various cities in India. This work has included developing and implementing procedures and providing training to over 1,800 senior business and store level associates in India,” a Bharti Walmart spokesperson said in an e-mail response to ET. “For the past several months, the company has also been using Greenberg Traurig and KPMG to perform due diligence on third party service providers in India.” Currently there are about 20 Greenberg Traurig attorneys stationed in India working on Bharti Walmart’s compliance programme, the spokesperson said.”
Relevant to FCPA investigative expenses, this FCPA Inc. participant marketing pitch caught my eye. Is it really necessary to analyze millions of documents in an FCPA review? Also, since when did FCPA investigations focus on “proving a negative that [the company] did not bribe foreign officials?”
Suleiman to FCPA Inc.
As noted in this recent post, earlier this month Daniel Suleiman (DOJ Deputy Chief of Staff for the Criminal Division) stated in a speech that the DOJ’s FCPA enforcement efforts “are as active today … as we have ever been.”
Earlier this week, Covington & Burling announced (here) that Suleiman would be joining his former boss Lanny Breuer (see here for the prior post concerning Breuer’s jump to FCPA Inc.) at Covington. Suleiman thus becomes the latest in a long-line of former DOJ or SEC FCPA enforcement attorneys to depart for FCPA Inc. The firm stated, in pertinent part, as follows.
“Mr. Suleiman joins the firm’s Washington office as special counsel where he is expected to focus on defending individuals and corporations facing white collar criminal charges, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations and congressional inquiries. […] In his Justice Department role, Mr. Suleiman helped oversee about 600 lawyers and 1,000 employees, and managed an annual budget of approximately $600 million. He provided advice on a wide range of federal law enforcement priorities, with particular focus on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and financial fraud enforcement.”
In his speech earlier this month, Suleiman rightly observed an issue I have long pointed out that, among other things, warrants a five-year bar on DOJ FCPA enforcement attorneys from providing private sector FCPA services. Suleiman stated as follows. “It is Justice Department policy that no FCPA prosecution can be brought without authorization from the Criminal Division, which distinguishes FCPA prosecutions from most other kinds of federal criminal cases.”
Scrutiny Alert
According to this report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting project, the SEC “has opened an investigation into Swedish multinational Ericsson’s business practices in Romania. The investigation is related to allegations made by a former Ericsson employee that the company used an approved slush-fund to pay off Romanian officials and decision makers to win contracts.”
Ericsson has ADR shares listed on NASDAQ in the United States.
Across the Pond
From thebriberyact.com, a useful of summary (here) of recent remarks by U.K. Serious Fraud Office Director David Green.
Staying in the U.K., a useful summary (here) by Eversheds of the “third conviction for an individual under the Bribery Act 2010.” The case concerns a Chinese national studying in the U.K. who attempted to bribe his professor for a passing grade. As noted in the Eversheds summary, “the UK has yet to see prosecution of a corporate under the [Bribery] Act, so companies are still awaiting judicial interpretation the corporate offence under [section] 7 of the Bribery Act and the Ministry of Justice’s Guidance on ‘adequate procedures’”. [Note the U.K. Bribery Act has domestic bribery provisions as well as “FCPA-like” foreign bribery provisions. The three individual Bribery Act convictions have all been domestic bribery prosecutions].
Reading Stack
Trace International recently released (here) its third annual Global Enforcement Report. The report provides an updated summary of international anti-bribery enforcement trends based on the cases and investigations tracked in the TRACE Compendium, TRACE’s public, online database of transnational corruption cases.
Sound advice from Tim Peterson (a former SEC enforcement attorney) and Robertson Park (a former DOJ enforcement attorney) in this article in Inside Counsel regarding voluntary disclosures.
“Not all potential [FCPA] problems, however, are appropriate for disclosure. After investigation, allegations of misconduct may not result in a determination that illicit activity has occurred. Problematic payments may not be sufficiently material to amount to an FCPA violation (though companies should be aware of different standards for liability under other jurisdictions’ anti-corruption laws; for example, the U.K. Bribery Act of 2010). Prematurely attracting the government’s attention may, as a practical matter, shift the burden to the company to prove the absence of a corruption problem. Enforcement officials may feel the need as a matter of basic human nature to seek some type of resolution to a case where they have invested significant time and effort. Companies need to weigh the potential benefits of cooperation against the significant costs of initiating a potentially unwarranted government investigation.”
From Compliance Week, a useful summary (here) of recent remarks by Chuck Duross (DOJ FCPA Unit Chief) and Kara Brockmeyer (SEC FCPA Unit Chief).
*****
A good weekend to all.
Friday Roundup
$1.16 million in FCPA professional fees and expenses per working day, show me the numbers, quotable, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Wal-Mart’s FCPA Expenses
In this previous Friday roundup, I calculated Wal-Mart’s 2012 FCPA-related professional fees and expenses as being approximately $604,000 per working day.
Yesterday in a first-quarter earnings conference call (see here), Wal-Mart disclosed as follows.
“Our core corporate expenses [included] $73 million in expenses related to FCPA matters, which was above our forecasted range of $40 to $45 million. Approximately $44 million of the expenses represent costs incurred for the ongoing inquiries and investigations, while $29 million covers costs regarding the global compliance review, program enhancements and organizational changes.”
Doing the math, Wal-Mart’s first quarter FCPA-related professional fees and expenses equal approximately $1.16 million per working day.
I observed in this March 2011 article as follows.
“This new era of enforcement has resulted in wasteful overcompliance, companies viewing every foreign business partner with irrational suspicion, and companies deploying teams of lawyers and specialists around the world spending millions to uncover every potential questionable or unethical $100 corporate payment. This new era of enforcement has proven lucrative to many segments of the legal, accounting, and compliance industries and the status quo would, from their perspective, seem desirable.”
The question again ought to be asked – does it really need to cost this much or has FCPA scrutiny turned into a boondoggle for many involved? For more on this issue, see my article “Big, Bold, and Bizarre: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enters a New Era.”
Sticking with Wal-Mart, this Bloomberg article provides an update on certain of the civil cases pending against Wal-Mart based on the company’s FCPA scrutiny.
Show Me The Numbers
This previous Friday roundup highlighted comments by Senator Elizabeth Warren concerning the SEC’s neither admit nor deny settlement policy and how it creates conditions in which there is “not much incentive to follow the law.” Senator Warren now wants to see research and analysis of the pro and cons of this policy and other related regulatory settlement devices.
In this letter to, among others, Attorney General Eric Holder and SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, Senator Warren writes, in pertinent part, as follows.
“There is no question that settlements, fines, consent orders, and cease and desist orders are important enforcement tools, and that trials are expensive, demand numerous resources, and are often less preferable than settlements. But I believe strongly that if a regulator reveals itself to be unwilling to take large financial institutions all the way to trial — either because it is too timid or because its lacks resources — the regulator has a lot less leverage in settlement negotiations and will be forced to settle on terms that are much more favorable to the wrongdoer. […] Have you conducted any internal research or analysis on trade-offs to the public between settling an enforcement action without admission of guilty and going forward with litigation as necessary to obtain such admission, and if so, can you provide that analysis to my office. I am interested in learning more about how your institution has evaluated the cost to the public of settling cases without requiring an admission of guilt rather than pursuing more aggressive actions.”
Senator Warren is obviously concerned that settlement policies and procedures facilitate the under-prosecution of alleged corporate wrongdoer. This is a valid concern. Yet so is the concern that such settlement policies and procedures also facilitate the over-prosecution of corporate conduct. For more, see my article “The Facade of FCPA Enforcement“, including reference to the SEC’s acknowledgment that settlement of an SEC enforcement action does “not necessarily reflect the triumph of one party’s position over the other.”
Quotable
Michael Crites (Dinsmore & Shohl and the former U.S. Attorney for the S.D. of Ohio) stated as follows in a recent Law360 interview.
“The federal government passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977 after discovering that American companies were making millions of dollars in bribes to various foreign government officials. The law was heralded as solving the problem by prohibiting companies and individuals from offering or making payments to any foreign official with the purpose of inducing the recipient to use their official position by directing business to or continuing business with the briber. Over 35 years later, the basics of this law are still necessary to prevent and punish unethical bribes but businesses have discovered that the Department of Justice’s interpretation of the law is broader than anyone intended.”
“DOJ has increased dramatically the number of investigations and enforcement actions under the FCPA, creating what DOJ calls a new era of FCPA enforcement. Unlike the activity in 1977, this heightened enforcement does not come from illegal bribes but the DOJ’s broad interpretation of the law which is now being applied to otherwise legitimate and ethical actions. The law is undeniably vague and few judicial decisions exist to provide additional guidance. Without these restraints, DOJ has embraced their power to apply the FCPA to unintended situations, resulting in a climate of fear for American businesses that conduct any business abroad.”
Reading Stack
More from the recent Corporate Crime Reporter sponsored conference. This article concerns a panel on corporate monitors. Participating in the panel were Dan Newcomb of Shearman & Sterling, George Stamboulidis of Baker Hostetler, Gil Soffer of Katten Muchin, Joseph Warin of Gibson Dunn, and John Buretta, chief of staff of the Criminal Division at the Department.
Friday Roundup
Additional individual defendant added to Alstom-related enforcement action, a mere $110,000 per working day, a focus on international philanthropy, scrutiny alerts, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Additional Alstom-Related Charges
This prior post highlighted the recently unsealed criminal charges against Frederic Pierucci (a current Alstom employee) and David Rothschild (a former Alstom employee) concerning alleged conduct in connection with the Tarahan coal-fired steam power plant project in Indonesia. The post highlighted several other individuals generically referred to in the charging documents.
Earlier this week, the DOJ announced (here) that William Pomponi (a former executive of Alstom Power Inc., a Connecticut-based subsidiary of Alstom) was charged for his alleged participation in the same scheme. Pomponi, previously identified as “Employee A,” is now described as “a Vice President of Regional Sales” at Alstom Power Inc. and “was one of the people responsible for approving the actions of, and authorizing payments to, Consultants A and B, knowing that a portion of the payments [to the consultants] was intended for Indonesian officials in exchange for their influence and assistance in awarding the Tarahan Project …”.
Like the original Pierucci indictment, all of the alleged overt acts in the superseding indictment against Pomponi allegedly occured between 2002 and 2004, although the information does allege wire transfers from Alstom Power Inc.’s bank account to the bank account of Consultant A until 2009.
Like Pierucci, Pomponi is also charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, four substantive counts of FCPA anti-bribery violations, money laundering conspiracy and four substantive counts of money laundering.
Kudos to the DOJ for including a link to the charging document in the release. This used to be DOJ’s practice, but when its new site launched a few years ago, it stopped doing this. Let’s hope this is a new practice!
Avon’s FCPA Expenses
Nearly five years ago – in June 2008 – Avon launched an internal investigation concerning FCPA compliance in China and other countries. In many respects, the most notable aspect of Avon’s FCPA scrutiny has been its pre-enforcement action professional and expenses – approaching $350 million (see here for instance).
In its most recent quarterly filing, Avon stated as follows. “Professional and related fees associated with the FCPA investigations and compliance reviews … amounted to approximately $7 during the three months ended March 31, 2013.”
Headlines read “Avon FCPA Costs Down to $7 Million for Q1” and “Avon Slows Spending on Bribery Probe.”
Both accurate headlines, but it is amazing to note nevertheless that – five years into Avon’s FCPA scrutiny – the company is still spending approximately $110,000 per working day on its FCPA issues. (See this prior post concerning Wal-Mart’s pre-enforcement action professional fees and expenses and asking “does it really need to cost this much?”).
International Philanthropy
FCPA material pops up in a variety of places. Such as this article in www.wealthmanagement.com concerning the perils of global giving. With two FCPA enforcement actions (Schering-Plough and Eli Lilly) based, in whole or in part, on donations made to a Polish castle foundation and with Wynn Resorts under FCPA scrutiny for a donation to the University of Macau (see here), FCPA scrutiny based on international charitable giving is no mere hypothetical.
Scrutiny Alerts
Scrutiny alerts concerning IBM, ADM, Total, and ENRC.
IBM
This recent post highlighted a ProPublica report regarding the relationship between various tech companies including H-P, IBM and Oracle with a ”senior technology officer for Poland’s national police and, later, the nation’s Interior Ministry, [who] set the terms for hundreds of millions of dollars in technology contracts and decided which ones should be awarded without competitive bidding.”
In a recent quarterly filing, IBM disclosed as follows.
“In early 2012, IBM notified the SEC of an investigation by the Polish Central Anti-Corruption Bureau involving allegations of illegal activity by a former IBM Poland employee in connection with sales to the Polish government. IBM is cooperating with the SEC and Polish authorities in this matter. In April 2013, IBM learned that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is also investigating allegations related to the Poland matter, as well as allegations relating to transactions in Argentina, Bangladesh and Ukraine. The DOJ is also seeking information regarding the company’s global FCPA compliance program and its public sector business. The company is cooperating with the DOJ in this matter.”
In 2011, IBM resolved an FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in South Korea and China. (See here). The settlement is still pending the approval of Judge Richard Leon (D.D.C.). In 2000, IBM resolved an FCPA enforcement action concerning alleged conduct in Argentina. (See here).
ADM
Archer Daniels Midland Company recently stated as follows in this release.
“ADM is in discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding a previously disclosed FCPA matter dating back to 2008 and earlier, and expects a resolution sometime this year. Based upon recent discussions, ADM believes it is appropriate to establish a provision of $25 million ($0.04 per share) to cover the potential assessments that may be imposed by these government agencies.”
Total
France-based Total recently stated as follows (here) concerning its long-running FCPA scrutiny concerning business conduct in Iran.
“In 2003, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) followed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) issued a formal order directing an investigation in connection with the pursuit of business in Iran by certain oil companies including, among others, TOTAL. The inquiry concerns an agreement concluded by the Company with consultants concerning gas fields in Iran and aims to verify whether certain payments made under this agreement would have benefited Iranian officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Company’s accounting obligations. The Company fully cooperates with these investigations. Since 2010, the Company has been in discussions with U.S. authorities (DoJ and SEC) to consider, as it is often the case in these kinds of proceedings, an out-of-court settlement, which would terminate the investigation in exchange for TOTAL respecting a number of obligations, including the payment of a fine and civil compensation, without admission of guilt. U.S. authorities have proposed draft agreements that could be accepted by TOTAL. Consequently, and although discussions have not yet been finalized, a provision of $398 million, unchanged since its booking as of June 30, 2012 and reflecting the best estimate of potential costs associated with the resolution of these proceedings, remains booked in the Group’s consolidated financial statements as of March 31, 2013. In this same affair, TOTAL and its Chief Executive Officer, President of the Middle East at the time of the facts, have been placed under formal investigation, following a judicial inquiry initiated in France in 2006. At this point, the Company considers that the resolution of these cases is not expected to have a significant impact on the Group’s financial situation or consequences on its future planned operations.”
A $398 million FCPA enforcement action would be the third-highest of all-time.
ENRC
Last week the U.K. Serious Fraud Office announced here as follows.
“The Director of the SFO has accepted [Eurasian Natural Resources Corp.] ENRC Plc. for criminal investigation. The focus of the investigation will be allegations of fraud, bribery and corruption relating to the activities of the company or its subsidiaries in Kazakhstan and Africa.”
In a statement, the U.K. company, stated as follows.
“The Board of Directors (the ‘Board’) of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation PLC (‘ENRC’ or, together with its subsidiaries, the ‘Group’) today notes that the SFO has moved to a formal investigation. ENRC confirms that it is assisting and cooperating fully with the SFO. ENRC is committed to a full and transparent investigation of its procedures and conduct.
ENRC has ADRs listed with the SEC and thus could also be subject to the FCPA.
This recent article in the Wall Street Journal states as follows.
“U.K.-listed Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. PLC said … allegations of wrongdoing over minerals sales conducted through a Russian network of agents were thoroughly investigated and dismissed” in 2007.
Reading Stack
Tom Fox (FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog) has penned a new book – “Best Practices Under the FCPA and Bribery Act: How to Create a First Class Compliance Program.” I was pleased to contribute the foreword to the book and noted that Tom’s “use of real events as learning devices to demonstrate compliance best practices make [the] book an engaging and informative read.”
Inside the NY Times Wal-Mart investigation (here) from the perspective of the Mexican journalist who assisted in the investigative reporting.