Description

2016 was a remarkable year for the enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a total of 27 corporate enforcement actions led to $2.5 billion in fines and penalties, the highest yearly total since the statute’s enactment in 1977.

The vast majority of 2016’s fines and penalties was generated by a few enforcement actions notable for substantial, company-wide bribery schemes. Most of the large number of enforcement actions, however, involved relatively small-to medium-sized penalties addressing less systemic corruption. Taken together, these trends point to both an increasing frequency and severity of FCPA enforcement—something of great importance to compliance officers.

In 2016—The Year in Corporate FCPA Enforcement, renowned compliance writer and FCPA expert Tom Fox has assembled a collection of case studies to provide some of the most interesting fact patterns from the year’s FCPA enforcement actions, which can be studied by chief compliance officers (CCOs) and compliance professionals to help prevent and detect bribery in their own organizations. 

Contents

Chapter 1: A year for the FCPA record books

• By the numbers
• Global anti-corruption enforcement numbers
• Key developments from 2016

Chapter 2: A February to remember

• SAP – Going rogue
• PTC – More FCPA grief involving gifts, travel, and entertainment in China
• Novartis – Channeling your inner Chuck Jones
• Compliance lessons from the Olympus Corporate Integrity
• Agreement
• VimpelCom – A stunner from the Netherlands

Chapter 3: The FCPA Pilot Program

• Introduction
• What does full cooperation mean?
• Ongoing remediation
• Impact

Chapter 4: A summer of change

• Akamai and Nortek—Quick resolutions
• Analogic—False contracts and bogus invoices
• LATAM/LAN—No discipline of corp officer costs money
• Key Energy—Transaction monitoring specified in a SEC Order
• AstraZeneca—China and Russia (again)
• Johnson Controls—Business is just too complicated
• Six-month Pilot Program wrap up

Chapter 5: A fall for the record books

• Och-Ziff—FCPA enforcement comes to private equity
• Embraer—Flights of fancy in bribery and corruption
• Odebrecht—U.S. leads a massive global corruption settlement
• Teva Pharmaceuticals—Largest pharma FCPA fine ever

Chapter 6: Hiring cases under the FCPA

• Qualcomm – Not qualified means not qualified
• JPMorgan Chase – Tying hiring directly to business

Chapter 7: Regulators’ remarks

• Leslie R. Caldwell
• Sally Q. Yates
• Andrew J. Ceresney
• Hui Chen
• Bill Baer

Chapter 8: Going forward

• Coordination of global anti-corruption enforcement
• Impact of the Pilot Program
• Impact of SEC enforcement under the Accounting Provisions
• Third parties and due diligence
• Anything of value really means anything of value
• China continues to be a source for FCPA violations 

Authors