The U.K. Bribery Act Goes Live

At the time of this post, the U.K. Bribery Act has been live for about ten hours, yet there has not been an enforcement action. Given that the Act is not retrospective and applies only to bribes paid after July 1st, this is hardly surprising, but I hope you appreciate the Friday humor.

U.K. corporates and others subject to the Bribery Act are doing business around the world, including in high-risk jurisdictions, and a healthy dose of corporate hospitality is no doubt occurring at Wimbledon. In other words, the world has not changed.

Today, of course, is the day the U.K. Bribery Act finally goes live.

As explained is this U.K. Ministry of Justice circular, "the Bribery Act replaces the offences at common law and under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 (known collectively as the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889 to 1916) with a new consolidated scheme of bribery offences."

The FCPA-like provision of the Bribery Act is Section 6 described in the circular as follows. "Section 6 is designed to deal with the corruption of decision making in publicly funded business transactions through the personal enrichment of foreign public officials by those seeking business opportunities. The offence is committed where a person offers, promises or gives a financial or other advantage to a foreign public official with the intention of influencing the official in the performance of his or her official functions. There must also be an intention to obtain or retain business or a business advantage on the part of the perpetrator. However, the offence is not committed where the official is permitted or required by the applicable written law to be influenced by the advantage."

As to corporate liability, the circular states as follows. "The Bribery Act includes a new form of corporate criminal liability where there is a failure to prevent bribery perpetrated on behalf of a “relevant commercial organisation” (Section 7). This new corporate liability for bribery [...] does not in any way change the existing common law principle governing the liability of corporate bodies for criminal offences that require the prosecution to prove a fault element or ‘mens rea’ in addition to a conduct element. This common law principle, sometimes referred to as the “identification principle”, will therefore continue to operate so that where there is evidence to prove that a person who is properly regarded as representing the “directing mind” of the body in question possessed the necessary fault element required for the offence charged the corporate body may be proceeded against."

As to the Section 7 offense, the circular states as follows. "The offence at section 7 of the Act creates a new form of corporate criminal liability. The offence applies only to a “relevant commercial organisation” as defined at section 7(5) and focuses on a failure by such an organisation to prevent a person “associated with” it from committing a section 1 or 6 bribery offence in order to obtain or retain business or an advantage in the conduct of business for that organisation. It creates direct rather than vicarious liability and its commission does not amount to the commission of a substantive bribery offence under section 1 or 6. A commercial organisation will have a full defence if it can show that despite a particular case of bribery it nevertheless had adequate procedures in place designed to prevent persons associated with it from bribing."

As Michael Volkov (here) nicely stated - "The longest pre-game show in history is drawing to a close. The new world will shortly be upon us. Will the UK Bribery Act be a game-changer or will it fizzle out like Y2K? Everyone has their predictions; everyone has their focus and emphasis."

Here is my two cents.

As with any new law, there is likely to be a learning phase for both the enforcement agencies and those subject to the law. That was certainly the case in the U.S. in the years following passage of the FCPA in 1977. Thus, it very well may be the case that there are no enforcement actions for some time (recognizing that it often takes a few years from beginning of an inquiry to resolution of an action). Thus the greatest immediate impact of the Bribery Act is sure to be the compliance ethic it inspires. I expect that the enforcement actions that may develop over time to focus on egregious instances of corporate conduct on which no reasonable minds would disagree. I do not get the sense, based on public comments of the Ministry of Justice and the Serious Fraud Office, that the envelope will be pushed too far in the early years of the Bribery Act.

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See here for the text of Richard Alderman's (Director of the U.K. Serious Fraud Office) recent speech on the Bribery Act.

In a signature departure from U.S. enforcement policy concerning merger and aquisition issues, Alderman stated as follows. "I know that there are many occasions when an acquiring company takes over a target company and discovers either before or after the event that there are serious problems about corrupt activities in the target company. My view is that when an ethical acquiring company identifies these issues, then it is in everyone's interest that that acquiring company gets on and sorts out the problems that it has inherited. I have difficulty in seeing that any SFO investigation at the corporate level would be justified although I would have to consider carefully the position of any individuals." (As highlighted in this recent post, several FCPA enforcement actions have been based on successor liability theories).

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In this speech, Alderman stated the following regarding the "foreign public official" term in the Bribery Act.

"Who then is a foreign public official? This is the subject of litigation at the moment in the US and I am following this with interest. The test I use is one that was set out by the OECD in the commentary on the OECD Convention. What we look at is whether or not the foreign State is in a position to influence the foreign company. We therefore look at the relationship between the company and the State to see whether effectively this commercial organisation is being run by the State. This can lead us into some tricky areas. We have received questions about banking officials in countries where the State has a very major interest in the Bank and exercises that interest very actively. Are those officials foreign public officials? Our view is that in those circumstances the individual is likely to be a foreign public official. On the other hand if the State has a major interest but does not control the operations of the Bank, then I think we could have a different situation."

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Keeping with today's U.K. theme, earlier this week Bloomberg reported (here) that the SFO is assisting the SEC "on inquiries involving financial institutions and whether bribes were paid in transactions with sovereign wealth funds."

As previously reported by the Wall Street Journal (see here) the SEC is "examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other financial firms might have violated bribery laws in dealings with Libya's sovereign wealth fund." The SFO's inquiry appears to be related to HSBC Holdings Plc's interactions with Libya's sovereign wealth fund.

Other financial services firms that have reportedly received letters of inquiry from the SEC include Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup.

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A good holiday weekend to all.

Friday Roundup

Another FCPA hearing on Capital Hill next week, news regarding Goldmann Sachs, questioning the use of NPAs and DPAs, an informative read regarding India, and something for your "foreign official" file.

Its all here in the Friday roundup.

House Hearing

Next Tuesday, June 14th, the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing titled "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." According to this report by Christopher Matthews of Main Justice the hearing is expected to focus on the following issues: successor liability, a potential compliance defense, "foreign official," and corporate mens rea issues.

The witness list for the hearing is as follows (see here).

Hon. Michael Mukasey (Former Attorney General, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP - see here); Mr. Greg Andres (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice); Mr. George Terwilliger (Partner, White & Case LLP - see here); and Ms. Shana-Tara Regon (Director, White Collar Crime Policy, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers - see here).

Predictably, some are blasting the very existence of the hearing. For instance, Political Correction, a project of Media Matters Action Network (a self-described progressive research and information center dedicated to analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media), describes the hearing here as "Rep. Lamar Smith's Fight to Make Bribery Easier For Big Business."

The House hearing follows a November 30th Senate hearing titled "Examining Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." See here for a prior post.

This post, prior to the 2010 hearing provided some guiding words, and if those were not enough, how about this statement from William Brock, U.S. Trade Representative, on April 18, 1983 during a hearing before the House Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"Mr. Chairman, no one minimizes the complexity of the issue before you today. Just because the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act spotlights a sensitive subject, some people wish to turn a ‘blind eye’ to its shortcomings rather than risk being accused of being ‘soft on bribery.’ That is too easy a way out. Retreating from controversy will not cure the law’s deficiencies. Such inaction will no more eliminate the need for FCPA reforms today than it can eliminate the criticism of the Act brought over the past several years. After five and on half years experience with this law, after legitimate problems have been identified and examined, we have a responsibility to respond. Is there any U.S. law that ought to be above such review and clarification – especially one as complex as the FCPA.”

Well said.

Goldman Inquiry

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported - "Eyes on Goldman-Libya Dealings" - that the SEC is "examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other financial firms might have violated bribery laws in dealings with Libya's sovereign wealth fund." The inquiry appears to be focused on a "$50 million fee Goldman initially agreed to pay [but one that was never paid to] the Libyan sovereign-wealth fund as part of a proposal ... to help the fund recoup losses."

A Goldman spokesman is quoted as follows. "We are confident that nothing we did or proposed was or could have been a breach of any rule or regulation. We retained outside counsel, as is our normal practice for any transaction to ensure that we were compliant with all applicable rules."

Can the FCPA be implicated by payments never made?

Yes. The anti-bribery provisions prohibit "an offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of payment ...".

What about payments to foreign governments?

No. The anti-bribery provisions only apply to offers, payments, promises of payment, or authorizations of payments to "foreign officials."

However, according to the WSJ article the inquiry appears to focus on whether the contemplated payment would have been passed on to an outside adviser firm "run at the time by the son-in-law of the head of Libya's state-owned oil company."

For more on the Goldman inquiry, see here from Ashby Jones (WSJ Law Blog) and here from Samuel Rubenfeld (WSJ Corruption Currents).

NPAs / DPAs

Non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements ought to be abolished. I've argued here and in other places that these agreements have traded one negative externality of white collar prosecution (the much over-hyped Arthur Anderson effect) for a host of others, including the alarming lack of any meaningful judicial scrutiny to ensure that NPAs and DPAs are truly based on facts and appropriate legal theories to support the charges “alleged.”

Mark Mendelsohn, the former head of the DOJ's FCPA unit during its era of resurgence, stated in a September 2010 interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, that a “danger” with NPAs and DPAs “is that it is tempting” for the DOJ “to seek to resolve cases through DPAs or NPAs that don‟t actually constitute violations of the law.”

Asked directly – if the DOJ “did not have the choice of deferred or non prosecution agreements, what would happen to the number of FCPA settlements every year,” Mendelsohn stated as follows: “if the Department only had the option of bringing a criminal case or declining to bring a case, you would certainly bring fewer cases.”

Add W. Neil Eggleston, a former DOJ enforcement attorney currently a partner at Debevoise (here), to the growing list of former DOJ enforcement attorneys critical of these alternative resolution vehicles.

In this recent interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, Eggleston stated as follows. “I worry that [NPAs and DPAs] will become a substitute for a prosecutor deciding – this is not an appropriate case to bring – there is no reason to subject this corporation to corporate criminal liability. In the old days, they would have dropped the case. Now, they have the back up of seeking a deferred or non prosecution agreement, when in fact the case should not have been pursued at all. That’s what I’m worried about – an easy out.”

Well said.

India

If India is a country of concern or focus of yours, you will want to check out the most recent quarterly newsletter of the India Committee of the ABA Section of International Law. (See here).

Guest editor James Parkinson of BuckleySandler (here) provides the following articles, among others, in the newsletter: one devoted to the FCPA risks of doing business in India; another devoted to India's demand-side statute - the Prevention of Corruption Act; another focused on reducing corruption risks in India through compliance programs; and another calling for India to join the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

"Foreign Official"

And finally, because your "foreign official" file would be incomplete without it, here is a transcript of the May 9th oral argument in the Carson "foreign official" challenge. See here and here for previous posts.

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A good weekend to all.

Libya

Two feature articles this week, one from the New York Times the other from Canada's Globe and Mail, focus on business dealings in Libya.

The New York Times article (here) by Eric Lichtblau, David Rohde and James Risen begins by noting that "some companies, including several based in the United States, appeared willing to give in to" Libya's demand for monetary contributions to help Libya pay $1.5 billion for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 - as a condition of continuing to do business in the country.

The article also notes that after the U.S. reopened trade with Libya in 2004, American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors "discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships."

Among other examples cited, the articles notes that "in 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion "signing bonus" to the Libyan government as part of a 30-year agreement." According to the article, "Petro-Canada, a large Canadian oil company, made a similar $1 billion payment after Libyan officials granted it a 30-year oil exploration license."

One strange aspect of the FCPA is that it does not prohibit payments to foreign governments, only foreign officials. See e.g., DOJ Opinion Procedure Release 09-01 (here) stating that the conduct at issue would "fall outside the scope of the FCPA" in that the things of value "will be provided to the foreign
government, as opposed to individual government officials ...".

The Globe and Mail article (here) by Nathan Vanderklippe begins as follows.

"Near the centre of Tripoli sits the bunker, residence and military command post of Moammar Gadhafi. It is hidden behind three concentric rings of defensive walls. It is a fortress that sprawls over six square kilometres. But for much of the past decade, those working hardest to penetrate it have not been citizens rising up against a despot. They have, instead, been wealthy Western companies, intent on wringing riches from the Libyan desert’s massive oil reserves. For some of them, gaining access to Col. Gadhafi – whether directly, or through one of his powerful sons, or through a shadowy network of well-connected “consultants” – was just one of the many challenges of operating in a country some remember as downright bizarre."

Schumer Calls For BP Investigation

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has requested a Department of Justice investigation of BP.

It has nothing to do with the Gulf of Mexico, but rather the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

BP is British company, but its ADR shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange and BP is thus subject to the FCPA.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder (see here) Schumer requests that the DOJ investigate whether BP violated any of the provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) in connection with the August 2009 release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan terrorist convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. [This post is limited to a discussion of the FCPA, and not the above referenced release.]

Why does Schumer think BP may have violated the FCPA?

Because, according to Schumer's letter - "BP has admitted that it lobbied United Kingdom government officials to wrap up a proposed prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) with the Libyan government amid concerns that a delay in reaching this agreement would harm a deal BP had signed with Libya’s National Oil Company to explore for oil and gas in the Gulf of Sidra and in parts of Libya’s western desert—an agreement which BP estimated could lead to eventual earnings of up to $20 billion."

Hold the phone and stop the presses ... a large corporation has admitted that it lobbied its own government in connection with a business purpose.

This would seem to be yet another example of the FCPA's double standard in that what is routinely done at home suddenly becomes a potential criminal matter when done in connection with international business. For other examples of the double standard see here and here.

Unless there is a finding that something of value went to a foreign official, the FCPA is not implicated because the law does not apply to giving things of value to a foreign government itself. Strange you say, but that is how the FCPA is written - a fact even the DOJ recognizes. See here for DOJ Opinion Procedure Release 09-01 in which the DOJ states that the proposed course of conduct "fall[s] outside the scope of the FCPA in that the [thing of value] will be provided to the foreign government, as opposed to individual government officials ..."

Schumer's letter also states:

"If BP, or its officials, promised the Libyan Government that it would secure al-Megrahi’s release from detention in exchange for oil exploration rights—or even that it would provide lobbying services for such a release on the Libyan Government’s behalf—BP may have been unlawfully authorizing performance of valuable services to the Libyan Government in exchange for profitable oil exploration rights in express violation of the FCPA. Similarly, if BP promised anything of value to United Kingdom government officials to secure al-Megrahi’s release, this would also violate the FCPA."

According to Schumer's press release, he and "Senators Gillibrand, Menendez, and Lautenberg last week requested the British government investigate the circumstances surrounding al-Megrahi’s release and requested that BP and the British government turn over all documents related to the oil companies’ efforts lobbying for a prison-release agreement with Libya. They also called for the US State Department to press the British to investigate BP’s involvement in the incident."

It is unusual for a U.S. politician to call upon DOJ to investigate a foreign-based company (or any company for that matter) for FCPA violations - particularly when the conduct at issue largely centers on conduct between the company and its own government officials.

Although the U.K. Bribery Act is not yet law (see yesterday's post here), when enacted, it is expected to have a broad jurisdictional scope and apply to certain U.S. companies, just as the FCPA applies to certain U.K. companies.

Following Schumer's lead will a British politician request that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office investigate a U.S. company because it lobbied its own government officials in connection with a business purpose? As John Gapper, the associate editor and chief business commentator of the U.K. based Financial Times, stated in an editorial on the subject, "the US has been no stranger to dubious deals with foreign governments that benefit both its strategic interests and US companies."

For more, see here for Christopher Matthew's Main Justice story on the topic.