Hester Peirce was appointed by President Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018.
During her time on the Commission, Peirce has voted on 27 corporate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions. As detailed below, Peirce has not approved 25% of the enforcement actions she has voted on and in an additional 40% of cases she has approved the enforcement action with exceptions (disagreeing on the disgorgement amount or civil penalty).
All told, Peirce has objected (in whole or in part) to approximately 65% of the corporate FCPA enforcement actions she has voted on while on the Commission.
As explained in the SEC enforcement manual:
“The filing or institution of any enforcement action must be authorized by the Commission. […] Commission authorization is sought by submitting an action memorandum to the Commission that sets forth a Division recommendation and provides a comprehensive explanation of the recommendation’s factual and legal foundation.”
“After the Division presents a recommendation to the Commission, the Commission will consider the recommendation and vote on whether to approve or reject the recommendation.”
As described in this speech by an SEC commissioner: “each Commissioner largely functions as an independent agent, who is largely left to his or her own devices to determine how to fulfil the role of an SEC Commissioner.”
Set forth below are the corporate FCPA enforcement actions Peirce voted not to approve.
- Eni (2020)
- Telefonica (2019)
- Sanofi (2018)
- Legg Mason (2018)
- Elbit Imaging (2018)
- Dun & Bradstreet (2018)
- Kinross Gold (2018)
Set forth below are the corporate FCPA enforcement actions Peirce voted to approve with exception as to the civil penalty amount.
- Cardinal Health (2020)
- Barclays (2019)
- Juniper Networks (2019)
- Deutsche Bank (2019)
- Cognizant Technologies (2019)
- Polycom (2018)
- Eletrobras (2018)
- Stryker (2018)
- United Technologies (2018)
- Beam (2018)
Set forth below is the corporate FCPA enforcement action Peirce voted to approve with exception as to the disgorgement amount.
- Quad Graphics (2019)
See here and here for prior posts highlighting speeches by Peirce.
