$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.
