Posts Tagged ‘FCPA’
‘Master of Kickbacks’ and Credit Suisse
Compliance professionals have another large FCPA enforcement action to pore over this week, thanks to the perpetually struggling Credit Suisse and several economic development loans for the country of Mozambique that were, quite literally, soaked in corruption. The headline, announced on Tuesday, is that Credit Suisse will pay $475 million to regulators in the United…
Read MorePenalties, Monitors, and More
Last week the head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission made notable remarks about more aggressive use of monetary penalties in SEC enforcement actions. A friend of mine then asked an excellent question: Could more aggressive use of penalties also affect how companies deal with the Justice Department? For lots of compliance officers,…
Read MoreWPP Pays $19M on FCPA: An Analysis
Advertising giant WPP has agreed to pay $19 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had poor internal accounting controls in the 2010s, which led to bribery through third parties in India and several other emerging markets. The SEC announced the settlement on Friday. It consisted of $11 million in…
Read MoreFoster Wheeler’s FCPA Lessons
We have our first FCPA enforcement action of the Biden Administration: a $177 million punch against engineering firm Amec Foster Wheeler, for bribery involving overseas agents to win a contract with Brazilian state-owned oil giant Petrobras. The settlement was announced Friday by U.S. regulators and the parent company of Foster Wheeler, John Wood Group. Wood…
Read MoreA Bright Take on FCPA Compliance
Here’s a splendid bit of research for all you FCPA aficionados: Business professors at the University of Chicago have quantified the economic benefit of corporate anti-corruption programs — by measuring, of all things, the nighttime use of electric lights in African villages near mining businesses subject to the law. The findings come from Hans Christensen,…
Read MoreSEC Enforcement Speech: Umm, Wow
Compliance officers, clear your schedule and retreat to your reading nook! We have an important speech to consider on the future of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, a Democratic appointee who joined the SEC only seven months ago, spoke Tuesday at the spring meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors…
Read MoreDeutsche Bank Control Failures Cost $130M
You may have missed this while watching the coup attempt, but Deutsche Bank settled FCPA charges last week with $130 million in penalties and disgorgement, a three-year deferred-prosecution deal, and lessons a-plenty about the perils of leaving internal control duties with operations executives in the First Line of Defense. The settlement was announced Friday afternoon.…
Read MoreSEC: New Extractive Payments Rule
The Securities and Exchange Commission has enacted a new rule for what oil & gas and mining companies must disclose to investors about payments made to foreign governments — a weaker version of a rule the SEC was forced to repeal in 2017, and which drew sharp criticism from the SEC’s lead Democratic commissioner. The…
Read MoreOECD Praises U.S. on FCPA
You know those progress reports the OECD publishes from time to time about the anti-corruption enforcement among countries around the world? Well, the group just published its latest report on the United States and gave the country generally high marks. That should come as no surprise to compliance officers, who have witnessed the U.S. government’s…
Read MoreLiquor Case Gins Up FCPA Lessons
Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Justice Department hit spirits manufacturer Beam Suntory with a $19.5 million fine on Tuesday for a bribery scheme in India — where the company got an extra punch in the pocketbook for failure to cooperate fully or to coordinate the Justice Department FCPA investigation with a separate…
Read More