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Feeling The Heat Overseas

Foreign companies can't be blamed for wondering if they're being singled out under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The names in the FCPA-related headlines alone are enough to cause high anxiety. ABB, Siemens, BAE, DaimlerChrysler, AstraZeneca and many more. But are U.S. prosecutors really focusing too much attention on U.K., European and other foreign companies instead of American firms? Probably not, at least according to the numbers. Here's the situation.

Foreign companies weren't subject to the FCPA at all until 1998, when the law was amended and, in the words of the U.S. attorneys' manual, "expanded . . . to assert territorial jurisdiction over foreign companies and nationals." For the next five years under the FCPA, the Justice Department hardly gave foreigners a second look. That began to change in 2004, when the number of all FCPA investigations started rising, and the number of purely foreign companies (not foreign subsidiaries of U.S. parents) being investigated rose along with the tide. Of the 20 investigations launched in 2004, says Dan Newcomb in Recent Trends and Patterns in FCPA Enforcement, four concerned purely foreign corporations. The numbers, he says, increased from 2005 to 2007, with about 13 investigations involving purely foreign companies, out of around 50 ongoing FCPA investigations in all. So if anything, the percentage of foreign companies subject to FCPA investigations has decreased during the past four years.

Why does it seem otherwise? Because those headline-making foreign names include ABB Ltd (Switzerland) Vetco Gray UK Ltd, Akzo Nobel, NV (the Netherlands) and Statoil ASA (Norway) -- all subject to still-fresh DOJ enforcement actions. And foreign companies under ongoing FCPA investigations include similarly big names: AstraZeneca (UK-Sweden, pharmaceuticals), BAE Systems (UK, defence) DaimlerChrysler (Germany, automotive), Innospec (UK, chemicals), Magyar Telekom (Hungary, telecoms), Norsk Hydro (Norway, energy), Novo Nordisk (Denmark, health, pharmaceuticals) Panalpina (Switzerland, transport), Siemens (Germany, engineering, electronics), Smith & Nephew (UK, medical devices) and Total (France, energy). All of them are well-known at home and most are famous around the globe.

Foreign attention has also been drawn to the FCPA by the so-called parallel investigations, where the DOJ and an anti-corruption agency from another country work together. Again, Dan Newcomb provides the details:

Among recent FCPA investigations by the United States government, parallel investigations in the following foreign jurisdictions were reported: Brazil (Gtech); China (Siemens); Costa Rica (Alcatel Lucent); France (Halliburton, Total SA); Germany (Bristol Meyers, DaimlerChrysler, Siemens); Greece (Siemens); Hungary (Siemens); India (Xerox); Indonesia (Freeport, Monsanto, Siemens); Israel (Siemens); Italy (Immucor, UDI, Siemens); Korea (IBM); Liechtenstein (Siemens); Nigeria (Halliburton, Siemens); Norway (Siemens); Russia (Siemens); and Switzerland (Siemens).

There's no way to know what percentage of FCPA violations are actually caused by foreign companies. So there's no way to know if foreign companies are getting more or less FCPA attention than they deserve. But in some cases, the DOJ didn't have a choice. It had to launch investigations. That's what happened when Siemens and BAE made headlines around the world for alleged corrupt practices on U.S. soil, and when evidence emerged that Panalpina's Houston office may have led an entire industry into an FCPA quagmire with its customs clearance and permitting practices for the oil and gas services segment.

But whether foreign companies receive the right amount of FCPA attention from the DOJ isn't so important. What's important now is that when foreign companies are subject to the FCPA's compliance requirements because of where and how they do business, they should do everything reasonably necessary to comply with the law. That should be true, by the way, for the laws of all the countries they're subject to. The only other option is to watch for their names in the headlines.

Full post as published by The FCPA Blog on June 09, 2008 (boomark / email).