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Lights Out On Another Week

Fridays are a mellow and reflective time here at the FCPA Blog. Feet on the desk, head tilted back, wondering what we'll eat over the weekend since the spouse took eggs benedict off our menu.

So we were thinking -- were we too hard on the Justice Department this week? The DOJ was in a couple of posts that were a bit off topic, prompting a friend to ask, "Does the FCPA Blog have an opinion about everything or is it just a busy body?" For the record, we admire and respect most of what happens at the DOJ. We appreciate the public service its people perform and our hats are off to them. But they're at the center of all FCPA criminal enforcement and, don't forget, we're all lawyers around here. So we're bound to shower them with attention -- if not always affection.


A few days ago the folks at the Economist Intelligence Unit, whose logo we're exploiting today, asked us to speak at their September '08 FCPA Conference in New York City. The St. Regis Hotel is a great venue and two of the speakers among many are Mark Mershon, the assistant DIC of the FBI's New York regional office, and Katheryn Nickerson, a senior lawyer at the Commerce Department, whom we've quoted here. They'll have perspectives on the FCPA that'll be different and worth hearing. Our other job, though, means we don't always have tight control over our schedule -- meaning we don't really know where we'll be tomorrow -- so we haven't committed yet to being in New York in September (our favorite month in the city). But we're working on it.


On Wednesday this week we talked about Halliburton, Expro and Umbrellastream (makes you think of Mary Poppins, doesn't it?). If you haven't read about the DOJ's FCPA Opinion Procedure Release 08-02, try to make time soon. It's a genuine piece of FCPA history -- the first time on record that an attempted hostile takeover has intersected with the FCPA's compliance requirements. The Release shows some of the enormous influence the FCPA is having on American business, and on companies abroad. It also shows how much involvement our friends at the DOJ can have in an organization's life on questions of compliance. Lawyers, investment bankers, pundits, professors and various experts are going to be talking about this Release (and trying to live with it) for decades.

Well, it'll soon be time to turn the lights off around here. Another week gone by. We don't suppose there's a low-fat, cholesterol-free, no-sodium, high-fiber, nutrient-dense version of eggs benedict on the market yet? Probably not.

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Full post as published by The FCPA Blog on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).