Posts tagged ‘DOJ’
Travel and Entertainment Guidance from the DOJ
By Thomas Fox
Published September 6, 2012, Corporate Compliance Insights
Based on a recent comment on one of my articles, I thought it might be an appropriate time to review Department Of Justice (DOJ) opinion releases on travel and lodging expenses for government officials to discuss this area of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance program. Read more
FCPA Guidance to Be Released by October
By C.M. Matthews
Published August 29, 2012, WSJ Corruption Currents
The U.S. government will release long-awaited guidance on its enforcement of a foreign bribery law ahead of a meeting of international anti-corruption experts in October, according to people familiar with the matter. Business groups have long pressed for clarity on the law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which they argue is vague, over-broad and detrimental to U.S. businesses. Lanny Breuer, a top Justice Department official, promised guidance on the FCPA in November last year but few details have been released since then. Read more
FCPA Compliance Hinges on the Tricky Definition of ‘Foreign Official’
By Catherine Dunn
Published August 27, 2012, Corporate Counsel
When it comes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’s prohibition on bribing a foreign official, just who, pray tell, does the U.S. government consider a foreign official? It’s a question that’s seldom come before the courts, but now, for the first time, is being considered at the appellate level—prompting the U.S. Department of Justice to weigh in on the definition through a response brief filed Tuesday. Read more
Corporate Anticorruption Compliance by the Numbers
By Ryan McConnell, Jay Martin, and Paula Bonavides
Published August 28, 2012, Corporate Counsel
Summer has come to a close without the promised beach reading from the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission: updated guidance on the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Corporate counsel seeking detailed anticorruption rules are left with the compliance guidance set forth in (1) the federal sentencing guidelines, (2) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidance, (3) the UK Bribery Act adequate procedures guidance, and (4) remedial compliance language in FCPA deferred and non-prosecution agreements. Read more
FCPA for Dealmakers: A Tutorial
By Frank Aquila, Kristina Veeraraghavan, and Jeffrey Lee
Published August 23, 2012, The Deal
With the recent sharp uptick in enforcement actions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act due diligence has never been more essential to potential buyers. Since the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 has further incentivized whistleblowers to report FCPA violations, we are likely to see a further increase in FCPA enforcement activit Read more
Justice Department Drops Hints on FCPA ‘Instrumentality’
By Jaclyn Jaeger
Published August 22, 2012, Compliance Week
The Justice Department filed a legal brief Tuesday that offers more clues about how it defines an “instrumentality” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, one of the most vague and nettlesome parts of the anti-bribery law. Read more
Lessons On Antitrust Compliance From South America
By Joe Murphy
Published August 9, 2012, Corporate Compliance Insights
In the U.S., as far as the Department of Justice is concerned, antitrust compliance seems to take a back seat. In the compliance and ethics field, it seems that other risk areas come first; certainly antitrust today lags behind work in the FCPA/foreign corruption area. From the government’s perspective, the Antitrust Division has sent strong signals that they do not care about compliance programs; all that seems to interest them is rolling up large scores on the enforcement side. Thus, as long as their “pipeline” of cartel cases remains full, they appear to be quite content. Read more
A Final Embarassing Setback For DOJ Related To Africa Sting Cases
By Mike Koehler
Published August 1, 2012, FCPA Professor
Two days ago the DOJ was dealt a final embarrassing setback in connection with the Africa Sting cases as Judge Leon rejected the DOJ’s recommendation of no jail time for Richard Bistrong and sentenced the conductor of the manufactured sting to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release Read more
A “Slow Down” in FCPA Enforcement
By Michael Volkov
Published July 16, 2012, JD Supra
Wait a minute – where are the fireworks? Where are all the FCPA enforcement actions? What happened to all the predictions of a big enforcement year (including my own). The Justice Department and the SEC almost ended the second quarter without any significant enforcement actions – Data Systems and Solutions was the only significant enforcement action for the quarter. Read more
