Verdict In ... Green's Found Guilty

The third FCPA trial of the summer has concluded and Gerald and Patricia Green (two Los Angeles area film executives) have been found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, substantive FCPA violations, and other charges (see here for the DOJ New Release).

According to the DOJ release, evidence introduced at trial showed that "beginning in 2002 and continuing into 2007, the Greens conspired with others to bribe the former governor of the [Tourism Authority of Thailand] in order to get lucrative film festival contracts as well as other TAT contracts." According to the release, the evidence also established that the Green's attempted to disguise the bribe payments by labeling them "sale commissions" and by making the payments "for the benefit of the former governor through the foreign bank accounts of intermediaries, including bank accounts in the name of the former governor's daughter and friend."

Reacting to the verdict, Assistant Attorney General Breuer stated that the DOJ "will not waiver in its fight against corruption, whether perpetrated within our borders or abroad" and that the FCPA "is a powerful tool that the [DOJ] will continue to use in an effort to stop individuals like the Greens who seek to further their own business interests through bribes paid to foreign officials."

The Greens are to be sentenced in December and the conspiracy and FCPA charges each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

As mentioned, the Green trial was the third FCPA trial of the summer.

The other two were the Bourke matter (see here) and the Jefferson matter (see here).

Leading up to these trials, the FCPA bar and the enforcement officials themselves, predicted that one result of these trials would be greater clarity of some of the FCPA's murky elements.

While the verdicts were, on balance, pro-DOJ verdicts, the verdicts reached in these trials were not exactly uniform.

Bourke was convicted of conspiracy to violate the FCPA (the case did not proceed to trial on a substantive FCPA violation).

Jefferson was also convicted of conspiracy (although it is not entirely clear if the jury found him guilty of conspiracy to violate the FCPA). However, Jefferson was found not guilty on the substantive FCPA charge (the charge predicated on the "cash in the freezer" allegations).

Have these trials provided any greater clarity as to various FCPA elements as widely predicted?

I think it is far to say that as a result of the Bourke verdict (even though it was not a substantive FCPA trial), the FCPA's knowledge standard has never been broader, and can be satisfied even when an investor, like Bourke, does not actually pay a bribe, but is merely aware that others may be making bribe payments in a widely viewed corrupt country for the potential benefit of an entity in which he is an investor (see here and here).

Beyond this, I'm not sure that any further clarity as to substantive FCPA elements has resulted from these trials, but I would be interested to hear what others have to say.

Will these trials and the largely pro-DOJ verdicts send a "proceed with caution" message to any individual or corporation faced with an FCPA enforcement action and stiffle legitimate defense theories based on the FCPA's elements?

I expect so, yet that is indeed unfortunate as a significant portion of FCPA enforcements are based largely on DOJ/SEC's untested and unchallenged interpretations of the law.