International Law

Opening Our Eyes To 'Associative Liability'

Posted on March 01, 2009

Pride's Disclosure Tells The Story

Posted on February 26, 2009

Extending Compliance To Third Parties

Posted on February 25, 2009
Law.com this week reported the results of a survey conducted by the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics (SCCE). The group sent a random survey to compliance professionals about their use of codes of conduct with third parties, such as suppliers, and received back 400 responses...

Understanding the KBR, Halliburton Charges

Posted on February 24, 2009
With the Halliburton / KBR settlement in mind, we asked readers last week (here) to help us understand how decisions are made to charge companies or individuals under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with violations of the antibribery provisions -- criminally or civilly...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Following Kozeny's Money

Posted on February 23, 2009
The Justice Department obtained a federal court order ten days ago against Viktor Kozeny, barring him from touching any of the proceeds from the 2001 sale of his Aspen, Colorado residence (left), amounting now to about $23 million. The government said the funds came from the money laundering offenses alleged in U...

Sir Allen And The FCPA

Posted on February 22, 2009
Since hearing about Allen Stanford's cozy relationships with certain Caribbean leaders, we've wondered if he'll eventually face criminal charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Neither bribery nor the FCPA have been mentioned yet in connection with Stanford...

The Friday Report

Posted on February 19, 2009
Former Congressman William J. Jefferson says the cash found in his freezer four years ago proves he didn't violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yesterday Jefferson filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, asking for review of the Fourth Circuit's refusal to dismiss most of the corruption-related charges against him...

Waters So Deep

Posted on February 18, 2009
There are things we know we don't know, said the former boss at the Pentagon. But then again, he added, there are things we don't know we don't know. That distinction came to mind as we read the latest email from a correspondent who always holds us to a high standard...

This Talk Is Not Cheap

Posted on February 17, 2009
Public corruption doesn't happen in public. It needs dark places to flourish. That's why the press can play a decisive role in fighting sleaze--just by shining light on it. So the announcement this week by the Chicago Tribune that it's going all out to fight graft is welcome news...

Protecting The Privilege

Posted on February 16, 2009
Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced a bill "to provide appropriate protection to attorney-client privileged communications and attorney work product." S.445 is co-sponsored by Senators Carper (D-DE), Cochran (R-MS), Kerry (D-MA), Landrieu (D-LA) and McCaskill (D-MO)...

Vietnam In The News

Posted on February 15, 2009
Last month we reported the conviction in a Tokyo court of three Japanes executives and their company on charges of bribing a senior Vietnamese government official. The illegal payments of $820,000 were intended to secure contracts for road projects backed by Japanese aid money...

China Deals Trigger Investigation

Posted on February 12, 2009
In an SEC filing this week, Morgan Stanley disclosed (here) that it's investigating possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in China. The bank said in a short statement that "it has recently uncovered actions initiated by an employee based in China in an overseas real estate subsidiary that appear to have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Settlement In ITT China Payments Case

Posted on February 12, 2009
Global conglomerate ITT Corporation settled civil Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The SEC filed a settled civil injunctive action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against New York-based ITT...

KBR and Halliburton Resolve Charges

Posted on February 11, 2009
Houston-based global engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR) pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a five-count criminal information, with one conspiracy count and four substantive counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. KBR agreed to pay a $402 million fine, the second largest criminal fine for an FCPA violation, following Siemens' $450 million penalty in December 2008...

I'd Want My Conscience

Posted on February 10, 2009
It may seem to Liberians as though everyone in their civil service is corrupt, but it's not true. There's at least one honest man. He's Richard Karyea, a former customs officer at the Roberts International Airport. Two years ago he refused a bribe from a drug smuggler worth more than 1,300 times his $15 monthly salary...

KBR's Twisted Web

Posted on February 09, 2009
We've been looking over the criminal information charging Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. There's one conspiracy and four substantive counts. There's also a related document called the Joint Motion to Waive Presentence Investigation...

KBR Nears Final Plea Deal

Posted on February 06, 2009
A criminal information filed in federal court in Houston on Friday shows that Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC, the Houston-based global engineering and construction firm that was once part of Halliburton, will plead guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

The DOJ Contra Mundum

Posted on February 05, 2009
Six months ago, without fanfare, the Justice Department scrapped the notorious McNulty Memo. It replaced it with new guidance to federal prosecutors about when to charge corporate organizations with crimes, including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Another Guilty Plea In Valve-Maker Case

Posted on February 03, 2009
A second executive of a California-based firm has pleaded guilty to a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation. Richard Morlok, 55, the former finance director of Control Components Inc., admitted that from 2003 through 2006, he arranged corrupt payments to foreign officials of about $628,000...

A Bit Of An Old Boy's Club

Posted on February 02, 2009
The U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office was created in 1988 with the mission to investigate and prosecute big-time fraud and corruption -- the misdeeds, as Teddy Roosevelt would have said, of the wealthy criminal class. But things at the SFO haven't gone well, and Britain's Sunday Times is reporting that dozens of lawyers, accountants and investigators are being offered up to three times their annual salaries to leave their jobs...

It's A Start

Posted on February 01, 2009
We've never come across any good news to report about Japan's overseas anticorruption enforcement. Until now, that is. Last Thursday, according to an AFP report, a court in Tokyo convicted three former executives and their consulting company for bribery in Vietnam...

Off Topic And On

Posted on January 29, 2009
Our colleague, Paul Oki, sent this note from Nigeria a few days ago: Would it surprise you if I told you that even now it's not unusual to find cars with Obama campaign stickers plying our roads? Or that there were billboards in prominent places with "Obama for President" in some of our major cities? Or that on inauguration day several companies took out full page, color adverts in our national newspapers congratulating the American people? We all feel like proud Americans at this point in history -- I can't express it any better...

The Hunt For Overseas Evidence

Posted on January 28, 2009
No corporations and just a few individuals have fought Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges in court, so only a handful of people have ever seen an FCPA defense up close. But for the first time, we have a chance to follow not one but three pending prosecutions -- in U...

Dealing With The DOJ

Posted on January 27, 2009
The Justice Department resolves corporate FCPA enforcement actions these days by using deferred and non-prosecution agreements. And the go-to guys for information about them are Ryan McConnell, an Assistant United States Attorney in Houston, and Larry Finder, a partner in Houston with Haynes and Boone...

The Unnamed Party

Posted on January 25, 2009
Last February, Aluminum Bahrain BSC, or Alba for short, made big headlines by filing an explosive federal lawsuit against Alcoa. Bahrain-owned Alba accused its long-time U.S. supplier of overcharging for raw materials during a 15-year period, and using some of the money to bribe Alba's executives for more contracts...

Halliburton Announces Pending Settlement

Posted on January 25, 2009
Halliburton said today its final settlement of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions with the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are waiting for final approval. It said it has reserved $559 million for the proposed settlements that include payments on behalf of its former subsidiary KBR...

Coming Clean In The Orient

Posted on January 22, 2009
Hong Kong, a home-ruled Special Administrative Region of China since 1997, is one of the least corrupt economies on earth. It sits atop this year's Wall Street Journal / Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, and occupies the 12th spot (tied with Austria) on Transparency International's current Corruption Perception Index...

Naked Corporate Defendants

Posted on January 21, 2009
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the decision in U.S. v. Ionia Management, S.A., shooting down attempts to change the way corporations are held liable for the criminal acts of their employees through respondeat superior. As we've said many times, nothing has had a greater impact on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act against corporations than respondeat superior, which leaves companies defenseless once employees are found to have committed violations...

Satyam Boss Skimmed Cash, Paper Says

Posted on January 20, 2009
New allegations in the Satyam scandal could have major Foreign Corrupt Practices Act implications. A story in The New York Times by Heather Timmons on Sunday said Satyam Computer Services' founder and former chief, B. Ramalinga Raju, may have "skimmed huge amounts of cash from the company, rather than padding its books as he has claimed, a person involved in the investigation of the company said on Saturday...

Obama On Corruption

Posted on January 19, 2009
With his family ties to Indonesia and Kenya, and who can forget Chicago, Barak Obama should know plenty about public corruption, and he does. The subject was clearly on his mind when he visited Kenya in 2006 (he's pictured left with his 83-year-old Kenyan grandmother)...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.