BAE - The Circus Continues

Just when you think the final circus wagon has left the station, the BAE bribery, yet no bribery circus continues to keep on giving.

As I posted earlier this week (here), debarment issues clearly drove resolution of this prosecution as demonstrated by the DOJ's sentencing memorandum. That post also noted that the U.S. Attorneys' Manual specifically states that "where the corporation was engaged in fraud against the government [...], a prosecutor may not negotiate away an agency's right to debar or delist the corporate defendant" - a relevant fact given that both the DOJ release announcing resolution of the BAE matter, as well as the sentencing memorandum, expressly state that BAE "defrauded" the U.S.

Today's circus act has to do with the magician's uncanny ability to make things disappear and concerns the State Department's treatment of BAE's license applications.

The FCPA Blog today (see here) profiles a DefenseNews article (here) and notes that the" first debarment notice posted on the State Department's website Monday was withdrawn and a second notice was changed at least once and then also withdrawn."

Defense News quoted a Washington trade lawyer as saying:

One notice Monday, another one Tuesday, and now they're both down. Which is it, guys? What State has done sends a terrible message. It makes it seem like State does not have a handle on what it wants to do - or that it's being manipulated by outside interests.

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For Christopher Matthews' (Main Justice) first-hand account of how the judge, prosecution and defense all carefully avoided talking about the FCPA bribery element in the room at Monday's hearing, see here. Matthews notes that BAE's lawyer specifically requested "that the record reflect that BAE did not know payments would be used for bribes, only that there was a high probability they might be used in that fashion."