International Law

The Accounting Standards Make The Shortlist

Posted on February 08, 2008
The FCPA's anti-bribery provisions attract lots more attention than its accounting standards -- and there's no mystery why. Public corruption is fascinating, while public accounting is . . . well, less fascinating. But although it might be tempting to ignore the accounting standards, doing that is never smart...

FCPA To The World: I Want You

Posted on February 05, 2008
In its early days, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 stirred up a lot of angry talk from Americans because of its extra-territorial reach. Some legal scholars even questioned the constitutionality of a statute that clung to the citizens wherever they went...

Jurisdiction Untangled

Posted on February 04, 2008
So much of the buzz about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act right now concerns investigations of name-brand foreign companies -- Siemens, BAE and Panalpina among them. Which makes it natural to ask, how do foreign companies come under the jurisdiction of the FCPA? The best explanation, we still think, comes from the United States Attorneys' Manual...

Siemens' Employees Come In From The Cold

Posted on February 01, 2008
German engineering giant Siemens AG said yesterday that it will extend its employee-amnesty program for another month until the end of February. The extension is no surprise. In mid-January this year, Siemens' counsel, Debevoise & Plimpton, said that "[s]ince November 28, 2007, we have obtained significant new information and developed very substantial leads from participants in Siemens' amnesty program, as well as other sources, regarding topics relevant to our investigation...

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Who's Monitoring The Monitors?

Posted on January 31, 2008
Ellen Podgor at the indispensable White Collar Crime Prof Blog has a post about the federal compliance monitors program here. It links to an article in the Washington Post here, and sets out the text of proposed federal legislation to regulate the monitors and their appointments...

Another Look At China

Posted on January 30, 2008
Yesterday we talked about a recent story in the Chinese press blaming foreign companies for more than half of the PRC's corruption, and singling out U.S. companies that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in China. On reflection, we may have been unduly skeptical about China's motives for publishing the story...

Most Corruption Comes From Abroad, Says China

Posted on January 29, 2008
A Special Warning For U.S. CompaniesAs China battles indigenous corruption, it's also spotlighting foreign and especially U.S. companies that are importing illegal practices into the PRC. A story in the Chinese press in December 2007 said, "According to a report by local consulting company Anbound, of the 500,000 bribery cases investigated in China over the last 10 years, 64 percent involved foreign companies...

Politics Is Still A Risky Business

Posted on January 28, 2008
A note to our readers: Former Indonesian President Suharto, 86, died on Sunday, January 27, 2008. He led Indonesia from 1965 until 1998, when he was driven from office after months of street protests. During his one-man rule, Indonesia had an average annual growth rate of 6...

Handicapping The FCPA

Posted on January 24, 2008
We heard a few days ago (here) that some Siemens insiders are trying to calculate the company's potential financial penalties for alleged Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offenses. Apparently the insiders think that past FCPA settlements reveal a correlation between the amount of bribes paid and the financial penalties imposed on the organizations...

Heading For Trial In Tinseltown

Posted on January 23, 2008
Our favorite news source here at the FCPA Blog -- Variety -- reports that the Hollywood film producers arrested for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have pleaded not guilty and will go to trial on February 26, 2008. Gerald Green, 75, and his wife Patricia Green, 52, both of Los Angeles, were arrested on a criminal complaint filed in December 2007 in federal court in Los Angeles...

How Much Will Siemens Pay?

Posted on January 21, 2008
A January 19, 2008 report in the German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche (here) says unnamed members of Siemens' supervisory board (equivalent to U.S. directors) think the company may be fined as much as ?4 billion by United States regulators for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Scandal Hits The Compliance Monitors

Posted on January 19, 2008
The problems started for the Justice Department's corporate monitoring program late last year. Five leading orthopedic device makers had been charged with bribing doctors in the U.S. to get their business. (Now they're being investigated for bribing doctors overseas in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

FCPA Release 08-01 Goes The Distance

Posted on January 17, 2008
The first Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Opinion Procedure Release of 2008 is out. It's the longest Release we know of -- just over twelve pages, and packed with details. It tells of a proposed investment in an overseas privatization, a raft of due diligence, tough and prolonged negotiations, yet more due diligence, and a final victory for compliance...

Siemens' Investigation Steams Ahead

Posted on January 17, 2008
Siemens AG -- the German industrial giant enmeshed in a global corruption scandal -- said this week that for fiscal 2007 it will delay ratifying acts of individuals who have served on its managing board at any time since 1999. President and CEO Peter Löscher, who joined Siemens after the events under investigation occurred, and who's leading the effort to clean up the company, is exempt from the ratification's postponement...

The FCPA Can Be A Very Taxing Matter

Posted on January 15, 2008
If you love studying the U.S. corporate and personal tax ramifications of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- and who doesn't? -- here's news about something special. It's an article called "Is This Bribe Deductible? Tax Implications of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

In Case You Missed It . . .

Posted on January 14, 2008
The White Collar Crime Prof Blog published its 2007 White Collar Crime Awards in December. It's an entertaining list that makes some serious points as well. A few of the Collars, as the awards are called, are of particular interest to us. Here's one that went to our favorite subject, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:The Collar for Hottest 30-Year Old ...

The Best FCPA Resources Money Can't Buy

Posted on January 12, 2008
Where do we go when we need help with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Our top choices are likely to include one or more of the following:1. FCPA Digest of Cases and Review Releases Relating to Bribes to Foreign Officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (the "FCPA Digest")...

The Curious Case Of The Cautious Requestor

Posted on January 09, 2008
A typical reader of this blog will tell you that he or she is reasonably prudent when it comes to complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But we're all downright reckless compared with the sweet lady who stars in the most recent FCPA Opinion Procedure Release...

When Is Charity A Bribe?

Posted on January 07, 2008
No good deed goes unpunished, or so the saying goes. That sure came true for Schering-Plough a few years ago. From February 1999 to March 2002, the New Jersey-based maker of Afrin, Claritin, Coricidin and Cipro, among other leading drugs, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through overseas charitable giving...

Joint Venture Compliance

Posted on January 01, 2008
International joint ventures bring very high risks under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Unreliable partners -- those who might pay bribes to foreign officials to help the business -- need to be spotted early and either avoided or controlled...

Akzo Nobel Pays $2.9 Million For FCPA Violations Under the U.N. Oil for Food Program

Posted on December 21, 2007
Akzo Nobel N.V., a Netherlands-based pharmaceutical company, settled U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act books and records charges with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. With the SEC, Akzo Nobel consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining it from future violations of Sections 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, ordering it to disgorge $1,647,363 in profits, plus $584,150 in pre-judgment interest, and to pay a civil penalty of $750,000...

Lucent Settles FCPA Violations For $2.5 Million

Posted on December 21, 2007
It Misused Affirmative Defense For Promotional ExpensesLucent Technologies Inc. settled U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission for $2.5 million. The settlement includes a $1 million criminal fine and $1...

That's Entertainment?

Posted on December 18, 2007
Wow! It's not often -- never, in fact -- that we can talk about the LA movie scene and tap Variety as one of our sources. But here it is. The Department of Justice just announced that a Los Angeles film executive and his wife were arrested on allegations of making corrupt payments to a Thai government official in order to obtain lucrative contracts to run an international film festival in Bangkok, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Making History In Pune

Posted on December 18, 2007
Pune, India was the site of a groundbreaking conference on December 16, 2007 about the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The first-ever FCPA compliance event to be staged in India was organized by Indiaforensic, a non-profit group for anti-fraud professionals...

Coming Clean At Siemens

Posted on December 14, 2007
Spiegel's December 12, 2007 online edition has a fascinating interview with Peter Löscher (left), who became ceo of Siemens AG in July 2007. There's lots for him to talk about. In October 2007, the German engineering and industrial giant settled global corruption charges with Munich prosecutors for ?201 million, based on questionable payments of ?420 million -- an amount the company later revised upward to ?1...

Schnitzer's Former Boss Settles FCPA Charges

Posted on December 13, 2007
The former chairman and ceo of Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. resolved charges on December 13, 2007 brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Robert W. Philip, 60, of Portland, Oregon, will pay about $250,000 to settle charges that he violated the antibribery, books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA (Section 30A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 [15 U...

A Six Pack For The Holidays

Posted on December 12, 2007
We're getting into the spirit of the season, thankful for the many great blessings enjoyed during 2007. We won't disappear completely during the holidays, but we'll slow things down for a few weeks while we spend time with family and friends in other parts of the world...

Watch That Inkblot

Posted on December 11, 2007
It's too soon to call it a pattern. But there's something new in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement. During 2007, the U.S. ramped up two investigations that covered not just individual companies but entire industries. That, we think, is worth a second look...

Enforcement Sans Frontières

Posted on December 09, 2007
By most counts, U.S. authorities are now investigating between 50 and 60 companies for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That's a record number. How many of them will face enforcement actions is anyone's guess. But three investigations worth watching have this in common: the targets are industry-leading multinationals headquartered outside the United States...

Tough Medicine For Medical Device Makers

Posted on December 05, 2007
The Securities and Exchange Commission said in October this year it is investigating possible violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by the leading manufacturers of orthopedic implants. Biomet Inc., Stryker Corp., Zimmer Holdings Inc., Smith & Nephew plc and Medtronic Inc...

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