Settled, not a victim, and monitor reports. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Settled
As highlighted in this prior post, in 2021 Shaquala Williams (a former employee of JPMorgan in New York city) filed a civil complaint in federal court (S.D.N.Y) against JPMorgan in connection with (at least in part) compliance obligations imposed upon JPMorgan in connection with resolution of its 2016 FCPA enforcement action. JPMorgan responded (see here) by filing a motion for summary judgment which was mostly denied by Judge Jed Rakoff who set a trial date for November 2022.
As reported here, the parties have reached an agreement to resolve the matter.
Not a Victim
As highlighted in this prior post, in connection with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Glencore, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office also announced that a Glencore entity was charged with seven counts of bribery in connection with its oil operations and that entity pled guilty. Count 1 stated:
“Between the 1st of March 2012 and the 1st of April 2014, Glencore Energy UK Limited gave a financial advantage, namely USD 4,586,143, to another, intending the advantage to induce officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to perform their functions improperly, or reward them for so doing, by unduly favouring Glencore Energy UK Limited in the allocation of crude oil cargoes, the dates crude oil would be lifted and the grades of crude oil allocated.”
As reported here:
“A court in London has rejected an application from the Nigerian government to receive a share of any fine paid by Glencore to the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), following the mining company’s conviction for bribery.
Glencore, headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, pled guilty in June this year to bribing officials in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan. Sentencing is due to take place next week and Nigeria had applied to the court to receive compensation from Glencore on the grounds that its people were victims of the crime.
However, in Southwark Crown Court, Judge Peter Fraser ruled that as a third-party in the case between the SFO and Glencore, Nigeria had no right to be directly compensated.”
This recent post highlighted how a medical services company was given the green light by a U.S. court to file a restitution claim in connection with the Glencore FCPA enforcement action.
Monitor Reports
In this recent Corporate Crime Reporter interview, Steven Solow (Baker Botts) who served as a monitor in a non-FCPA case is asked “what percentage of monitor reports are made public” and responded:
“I don’t know the exact percentage, but I would guess it’s a very small number. There is a sort of unchallenged notion that by making reports public you would somehow reduce the ability of the monitor to effectively engage with an organization. I found that it was completely the opposite. Making the reports public holds the monitor to account in a very public way. You are reporting on your work.”
“Within the organization, what I found was that it actually made people more forthcoming. We assured people of confidentiality. We were very careful about things that we reported being things that we could support factually. People in the organization could see that their concerns were being heard and that issues were being raised. This encouraged people to come forward and encouraged the organization to take action.”
“I thought it had a very salutary effect overall in the process. When the Judge sought to make the reports public, counsel for Carnival Cruise Lines did not object to making them public.”
In the FCPA context, the DOJ has actively sought to keep monitor reports out of the public domain (see here).
