International Law

The Quiet Revolution

Posted on May 21, 2009
Here's some news you don't hear every day -- in fact, no one's heard it for the last 367 years: Britain's House of Lords this week suspended two of its members because of corruption. It's the first time a Lord has been barred since 1642.Lord Taylor of Blackburn, a peer since 1978, and Lord Truscott, who joined the upper house five years ago, agreed to put a loophole in a new tax law in exchange for a promise of cash payments...

Bourke v. The Professor

Posted on May 20, 2009
When it's a bit of snoozer around here, we know what to do -- take a peek at the docket in U.S. v. Kozeny. There's plenty happening there lately, and here's the latest. It's a pleading from Frederic Bourke's lawyers that argues why the man to the left, Rajan Menon, PhD, should be barred from testifying as an expert witness for the prosecution at Bourke's trial...

Halliburton And KBR In Class Action

Posted on May 19, 2009
Plaintiffs lawyers have filed a state derivative class action suit against some of the officers and directors of Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary, KBR. The suit in Houston alleges all sorts of malfeasance -- including the Nigerian bribery that led to the companies' $579 million settlements of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offenses in February this year...

Second Chances And More

Posted on May 18, 2009
What a difference a year or so makes. In December 2007, Lucent Technologies Inc. -- which became part of Alcatel SA in November 2006 -- settled Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges. It had illegally paid millions of dollars for Chinese officials to take more than 300 trips to the U...

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Guilty Pleas In Haiti Bribery Case

Posted on May 17, 2009
Two Florida men have admitted bribing employees of Haiti's state-owned telephone company in return for better rates for Miami-based communications firms.Juan Diaz, 51, of Miami, pleaded guilty Friday to a one-count criminal information. He was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by conspiring to make corrupt payments to officials from Telecommunications D'Haiti...

Graft Allegations Against MAN

Posted on May 14, 2009
Prosecutors in Munich think German truck-maker MAN AG paid bribes to customers between 2002 and 2005 of around ?14 million to boost the sales. According to recent reports (here), some of the alleged payments inside and outside Germany were concealed by being routed through bank accounts of relatives and friends of MAN employees...

FCPA Defendants Want Less Paper, More Facts

Posted on May 13, 2009
Four former executives of Control Components Inc. indicted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in early April have accused the Justice Department of playing "a game of hide and seek" with its evidence against them. Stuart Carson, his wife Hong "Rose" Carson, Paul Cosgrove and David Edmonds said in a court filing this week that the government has identified only 30 of the 236 illegal payments alleged in the indictment -- not enough for them to plan their defense...

What's The Impact of Sun's FCPA Disclosure?

Posted on May 12, 2009
Sun Microsystems said last week it may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It didn't reveal where the payments might have occurred or how much the bribes amounted to. But it said the potential offenses, which it has reported to U.S. and other authorities, "could possibly have a material effect on our business...

The Bourke Files: Lies, Kickbacks And Other Crimes

Posted on May 11, 2009
In its prosecution of Frederic Bourke for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by helping Czech-born fugitive Viktor Kozeny bribe Azeri officials, the government plans to call at least two witnesses who have admitted their guilt in the case. Now Bourke is accusing them of committing other, previously undisclosed crimes...

Novo Nordisk Pays $18 Million In Penalties For Iraq Bribery

Posted on May 11, 2009
Denmark-based Novo Nordisk A/S will pay a $9 million criminal penalty and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department for illegal kickbacks paid to the former Iraqi government under the U.N. oil-for-food program. It will also pay $3,025,066 in civil penalties and $6,005,079 in disgorgement of profits, including pre-judgment interest, to the Securities and Exchange Commission...

The Bourke Files: Poison And Prostitutes

Posted on May 10, 2009
Bloomberg's David Glovin reported Friday how federal prosecutors are planning to show that Frederic Bourke, who's accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, thought his partner in their luxury handbag business was secretly trying to inject him with a "harmful substance...

C'est Magnifique!

Posted on May 07, 2009
Francophile kleptocrats everywhere must be shaking in their Yves Saint Laurent double monk-strap black boots today, thanks to a Paris magistrate's ruling. He accepted a case brought by Transparency International that requires French authorities to investigate how three African rulers, their family members and friends managed to acquire numerous luxury homes, cars and other assets in France...

Iraq's Lawsuit Legacy

Posted on May 06, 2009
In July 2008, the government of Iraq launched a massive FCPA-related federal lawsuit in New York City. We first talked about it here. The complaint named 93 defendants in claims alleging bribery and fraud under the now-defunct United Nations oil-for-food program...

Crime And Corruption In The Spice Islands

Posted on May 05, 2009
The head of Indonesia's anti-corruption agency was arrested Monday for murdering a prominent local businessman. Antasari Azhar, 56, chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission or KPK, is accused of killing a rival in a love-triangle. The woman is alleged to be a 22-year-old golf caddy who was working at a club in Azhar's neighborhood...

When Is It OK To Pay?

Posted on May 04, 2009
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act doesn't prohibit all payments to foreign officials. It's not that broad. What it does prohibit are corrupt payments made to obtain or retain business.Which means the application of the law isn't necessarily black and white...

Another Whistleblower Blow-Up

Posted on May 03, 2009
An ex-AIG lawyer sued the company on Friday in federal court in New York City. Kimberly Lebron claimed she was fired after complaining to AIG brass about their plan to sponsor a six week trip by an official from Korea Post. She said the arrangement was a quid pro quo for a $50 million investment by Korea Post in an AIG real estate fund and would violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

I-Fighting Corruption

Posted on April 30, 2009
Does the Internet have a role to play in the battle against graft? It's still early, but the signs are promising.For public corruption to flourish, a couple of ingredients are necessary -- red tape and opaque decision-making. The Internet can reduce both...

Dirty Diamonds And The FCPA

Posted on April 29, 2009
We've all heard of the people who call 911 to report that their cocaine's just been stolen. Well, something similar happened here -- under terrible circumstances.The case in federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York is called In re Mark Allen Kalisch...

Catching Corrupt Lawyers, Part II

Posted on April 28, 2009
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. -- Mario PuzoWith that street-smart aphorism in mind, we went looking for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act-related cases where lawyers were alleged to be on the wrong side of the law...

Catching Corrupt Lawyers, Part I

Posted on April 27, 2009
Two professional groups say they'll punish any lawyers involved in KBR's $182 million scheme to bribe Nigerian officials in exchange for contracts worth $6 billion.A past president of the International Bar Association (IBA) visiting Nigeria last week reportedly "threatened to use its internal disciplinary mechanism to punish accordingly any of its members indicted in the scandal," according to a story in the Nigerian press (here)...

An African Voice Is Silenced

Posted on April 26, 2009
The FBI will help Burundi investigate the murder two weeks ago of one of the country's most prominent anti-corruption activists. Ernest Manirumva was vice-president of OLUCOME (the Anti-Corruption and Economic Malpractice Observatory), arguably Burundi's most important NGO...

Passing The Test

Posted on April 23, 2009
We talked a week ago about Somali pirates and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We're on the subject of piracy again, but we can't pretend this post is on topic. That's OK, though -- on Fridays we have a license to wander a bit. So here's what's on our mind...

Right Issue, Wrong Side?

Posted on April 22, 2009
When graft-busting becomes a political weapon, the rule of law grows weaker and corruption generally flourishes. Is that what's happening in Venezuela? Maybe. For sure the number of high-profile opposition leaders accused of bribery and corruption is growing...

One-Way Waivers

Posted on April 21, 2009
There was an important post over the weekend on the White Collar Crime Prof Blog. Ellen Podgor flagged a recent case (here) with serious implications for companies with deferred prosecution agreements.An April 17, 2009 opinion from the DC Court of Appeals in US v...

In Step With The DOJ

Posted on April 20, 2009
What does it mean to "cooperate with the government" after discovering serious Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance problems? There's a description of organizational cooperation in a recent sentencing memo the Justice Department filed in US v. Latin Node Inc...

Busting Graft From The Other Side

Posted on April 19, 2009
It perennially runs neck-and-neck with Louisiana as the country's most corrupt state. But last week Illinois took a big step toward coming clean. It launched a website that makes it easy for anyone to report corruption in state and local government -- and get paid to do it...

Paying The Pirates

Posted on April 16, 2009
This month's online edition of Foreign Policy magazine has an article (here) saying Somali pirates hand over part of their proceeds to the regional Puntland government in exchange for being allowed to operate in areas it controls.So what? Stay with us a minute...

More On The Monitors

Posted on April 15, 2009
Ah, Spring. And the corporate compliance monitors are back in the news. Here's what's happening:It's an annual event. Democrats in Congress have re-introduced a bill from last summer to regulate the way monitors are selected, paid and held accountable...

That's Not Justice

Posted on April 14, 2009
A former U.S. Attorney told us a few years ago: "The Justice Department has found a way to subcontract out its FCPA investigations. Now the company lawyers are taking the statements and doing the document work. It's great for the government but really bad for the employees...

Around The Horn

Posted on April 13, 2009
He wasn't kidding. Last week's record-setting indictment under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of six individuals from one company highlights the Justice Department's strategy to target people, not just companies. In September last year, Mark Mendelsohn -- the DOJ official responsible for FCPA criminal prosecutions -- told an audience: The number of individual prosecutions has risen ? and that?s not an accident...

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