Bristol Palin, Abstinence and the Compliance Defense

Today Bristol Palin informs the debate on the efficacy of a compliance defense to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). A noted expert on many areas around ethical behavior and family values, Ms. Palin was credited by Mary Elizabeth Williams in a Salon article, entitled “Bristol Palin’s pregnancy announcement is her coming out”, as being the “world’s least successful spokesperson for abstinence” when she announced last week, that, for the second time, she was pregnant out of wedlock. Ms. Palin had previously been a spokesperson for the Candie’s Foundation on, you guessed it, prevention of unwanted pregnancy through abstinence. How does Ms. Palin’s announcement inform the debate on a compliance defense to the FCPA? Quite simply, much like abstinence, the compliance defense is not effective if you say you have one but only if you are doing compliance.

This rather sad fact that although both abstinence and a compliance defense are simple in concept but perhaps not easy to accomplish in the real world was further driven home last week in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article by Joel Schectman, entitled “Russian Uranium Probe Reaches Into Small-Town Ohio”, where he reported that “A widening U.S. bribery probe involving Russian uranium has reached from Moscow to a company in the heart of America’s Rust Belt. U.S. authorities are investigating whether an executive in Bremen, Ohio—a rural community with about 1,500 residents roughly 40 miles southeast of Columbus—bribed Russian energy officials to win his company millions of dollars in contracts to supply shipping containers for uranium, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The rather amazing thing about this report is not that bribery and corruption had occurred in the past century or even the past decade but that bribery is reported to have begun in 2011 by Westerman Company and continued at least through 2013 after the entity was acquired by Worthington Industries Inc. Indeed the article identifies the company executive “Barry Keller, a Bremen native who has spent more than three decades at Westerman, working his way up from the shop floor to senior management” as the person involved in paying the bribes. Further, it does not even appear that the bribery scheme itself was too sophisticated or unique. According to Schectman, it involved paying a Russian middleman who “arranged for the bribe payments to be channeled through a maze of secret accounts in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland, where they were collected by higher-ranking officials at Rosatom, Tenex’s parent.” The bribes were funded via “5% of a Westerman contract, and would be paid through a consulting invoice”.

Keller’s involvement brings up a key reason why I think having a compliance defense will not increase the doing of compliance. He was the head of the company and then head of the business unit. Is it really possible that a company that did business internationally, with a foreign state owned enterprise and was a US public company did not understand that it needed to have a FCPA compliance program in 2011? Even aside from the fact that the bribery is alleged to have begun when Westerman was an independent entity, did Worthington bother to perform any pre-acquisition due diligence in the FCPA arena when they purchased Westerman in 2012? If Worthington did bother to engage in any pre-acquisition due diligence prior to buying Westerman, how about when it integrated the newly acquired entity into its ongoing compliance program, trained Westerman employees and performed a full FCPA forensic audit of Westerman as surely it identified Westerman’s sales to “Tenex, part of state-owned Russian nuclear company Rosatom” as potentially high risk?

From Schectman’s article it does not appear that Worthington determined internally that there was any FCPA violation in its operations as he quotes the company’s General Counsel (GC), Dale Brinkman, for the following statement “We first learned of [the investigation] in November, and we are fully cooperating with the Justice Department.” That does not sound much like a company that has appropriate internal controls or keeps books and records in accordance with public accounting requirements under the FCPA. But as with abstinence, saying you engage in it is easy.

I think the lesson to be learned from the Worthington matter, and the clarion call for a compliance defense appended to the FCPA, is that adding a compliance defense to the FCPA will not increase compliance with the FCPA. Corporations take their lead from the top on their priorities. If there is not senior management desire to do business in compliance, it does not matter what the benefits of having a compliance defense bring. In 2015, if a company is doing business outside the US with foreign government officials or officials of state owned enterprises, someone in the business, i.e. their lawyers, their auditors or their Board of Directors, knows that they must do business in compliance with the FCPA. I would argue that it was just as well known in 2011 when Westerman Companies is alleged to have begun its bribery scheme. Having a compliance defense will not help drive compliance if the business owner, business leader or senior management is not committed to doing business in compliance with the FCPA.

For even if such a company does institute a compliance defense, it is the doing of compliance which makes a compliance program effective, not having a written program. A key is how a company incentivizes conduct. For doing compliance in any effective way, a company must commit time and resources to the effort. No ‘out of the box’ solution will allow a company to do compliance because the doing of compliance means dealing with an intersecting matrix of employees, technology and third parties. This means that there must be money spent on compliance. In addition to the resource issues, if the company bases its salary, compensation and benefits to employees solely or even largely on sales only; that is what will be emphasized in a company. If, however, there are incentives built into the compensation structure, it will emphasize the importance of the doing of compliance in the day-to-day work of a company.

Bristol Palin has announced she does not want to be ‘lectured’ about her current pregnancy. Maybe her unique intellect has allowed her some insight into the irony of her situation (or then again perhaps not). However she was right about one thing. If you want to ensure that you do not get pregnant, abstinence is about the best way to do so. But abstinence only works if you are doing abstinence, not simply saying you are abstinent. The same is true for adding a compliance defense to the FCPA. A compliance defense only works if you are doing compliance.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

King Arthur Week – The Quest for the Holy Grail and Compliance Defense – Part V

We conclude our Arthurian themed week with the Holy Grail, which has fired the imagination of artists for millennia. What was the Holy Grail? According to Professor Dorsey Armstrong in her Teaching Company lecture series, entitled “King Arthur: History and Legend”, the Holy Grail has taken various forms over the years. For Chrétien de Troyes, it was a fancy serving dish; for Wolfram von Eschenbach, it is a magical stone; for Robert de Boron, it is the cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper; for the comedy troupe Monty Python, it is a cartoon sketch that no one ever finds; and for the modern day author Dan Brown, it is both a person, who is a descendant of Mary Magdalene, and a bloodline which leads to the Merovingian kings of France. In other words, it means many things to many people.

One of the articulated reasons for the creation of King Arthur’s Round Table was tied to the Holy Grail, since it was allegedly used at the Last Supper, it seems only natural that Arthur would seek it from his table as well. Indeed in Robert de Boron’s account of Arthur, the wizard Merlin tells Arthur the Round Table was established to identify the one Knight, who was pure of heart, who could find the Holy Grail. Only after the great quest for and locating of the Holy Grail was achieved could Arthur’s other ambitions come to pass.

Another interesting twist on the Grail legend is that it was in Britain. Curiously it was first ‘discovered’ by some enterprising Monks in Glastonbury, England in the late 12^th century. They just happened to come across a well that ‘bled’ water around the time of an annual pilgrimage. Going viral in the Middle Ages was tough but the Monks built upon their initial find by claiming that both King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere were also buried at their abbey. Do you believe any of the above? Are you on your own Grail Quest, however dreamy that quest might be?

I thought about the quest for the Holy Grail in the context of the renewed call for a compliance defense addition to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which would give companies a pass if they had sustained a FCPA violation. In a recent blog post, entitled “Wal-Mart’s Recent Disclosures”, the FCPA Professor renewed his clarion call for a compliance defense for FCPA violators, using Wal-Mart’s last three-year spend on compliance resources as a starting point. He wrote, “Wal-Mart disclosed spending approximately $220 million over the past three years in global compliance program and organizational enhancements.” He went on to note, “The key policy issue is this. Wal-Mart has engaged in FCPA compliance enhancements in reaction to its high-profile FCPA scrutiny. Perhaps if there was a compliance defense more companies would be incentivized to engage in compliance enhancements pro-actively. A compliance defense is thus not a “race to the bottom” it is a “race to the top” (see here for the prior post) and it is surprising how compliance defense detractors are unable or incapable of grasping this point.”

Leaving aside the issue of whether I am “unable or incapable” to grasp these issues I raised, I see this quest for (or ‘race’ as the FCPA Professor calls it) for a compliance defense for companies that violate the FCPA to be as quixotic as the quest for the Holy Grail. As there were two requirements for the Knight who was destined to find the Grail, we will begin pureness of heart. Recognizing that it might be difficult to find a corporation that is ‘pure of heart’, the appropriate analogy might be more than simply spending what may appear to be a large dollar amount on a compliance program. This is because it is not the amount of money you spend that informs the effectiveness of your compliance program. In three years Wal-Mart has reported it spent $220MM. The FCPA was enacted into existence in 1977. What do you get if you divide $220MM total spend into 38 years? My (recovering) trial lawyer math shows that to be approximately $5.78MM per year. How many billions of dollars per year was the annual revenue of Wal-Mart during that time? (Hint – a lot)

Moving our quest time frame to the modern era of FCPA enforcement, to say 2005. That would give an annual compliance spend of $20MM per year. If one looks at the company’s revenue from the middle of the last 10 years, for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2011, Wal-Mart reported net income of $15.4 billion on $422 billion in gross sales. Now what do you think about Wal-Mart’s quest for an effective compliance program based upon three year’s spending of $220 being significant? Indeed what is the percent of its revenues over the past three years that Wal-Mart spent creating its compliance program? Alas my trial lawyer math skills do not allow me to calculate a number so small.

How about the second part of the Grail quest that requires a ‘chaste’ Knight? Once again it is somewhat difficult to understand how a corporation could be chaste but I think the appropriate analogy is the doing of compliance. Put another way, it is not having a compliance program in place but having an effective compliance program. So not only does the amount of money a company spends become immaterial to our quest but also the same can be said to the claim that having a written program should entitle you some type of defense to any FCPA violations. Just as questing for the Holy Grail is seeking something that does not exist, affording companies a defense from their own FCPA violations by having a written program in place is not a temporal reality.

Under the FCPA Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, that it is an interplay of the right compliance message, tools in place to communicate and enforce the compliance message and then oversight to ensure compliance with the entire compliance regime. Such things as monitoring are recognized as a key element so your company should establish a regular monitoring system to spot issues and address them. Effective monitoring means applying a consistent set of protocols, checks and controls tailored to your company’s risks to detect and remediate compliance problems on an ongoing basis. To address this, your compliance team should be checking in routinely with the finance departments in your foreign offices to ask if they have noticed recent accounting irregularities. Regional directors should be required to keep tabs on potential improper activity in the countries they manage. Additionally, the global compliance committee should meet or communicate as often as every month to discuss issues as they arise. These ongoing efforts demonstrate your company is serious about compliance.

In addition to monitoring, structural controls are recognized as an important element. It has been said that large companies “must use structural means to maintain control.” One of the best explanations of the use of internal controls as a structural component of any best practices compliance program comes from Aaron Murphy, a partner at Foley and Lardner in San Francisco, in his book entitled “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act”, where he said, “Internal controls are policies, procedures, monitoring and training that are designed to ensure that company assets are used properly, with proper approval and that transactions are properly recorded in the books and records. While it is theoretically possible to have good controls but bad books and records (and vice versa), the two generally go hand in hand – where there are record-keeping violations, an internal controls failure is almost presumed because the records would have been accurate had the controls been adequate.” These two parts are but a sampling but it is in the doing of compliance that any anti-corruption compliance program becomes effective; it is not simply having one in place.

Finally, as with all quests, what will it bring you if you actually achieve it? As with the Holy Grail, it is a good story but that is about it. I find this view best articulated by Matthew Stephenson, in a blog post entitled “The Irrelevance of an FCPA Compliance Defense”, where he gave three reasons why a compliance defense is not warranted. First (and perhaps almost too obvious to state) is that if your company is invoking a compliance defense, there has been a FCPA violation. The second is “The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) already takes into account a corporation’s good-faith efforts to implement a meaningful compliance program when the DOJ decides whether to pursue an FCPA action against the corporation, and what penalties or other remedies to impose. Indeed, the adequacy of the corporation’s compliance program is a standard subject of negotiation between the DOJ and corporate defendants.” Third is that “An FCPA compliance defense would only alter the DOJ’s bargaining position if a corporation unhappy with the DOJ’s position could either (1) convince the DOJ lawyers that the DOJ’s position is unreasonable in light of the corporation’s compliance program, or (2) credibly threaten to go to court and defeat the DOJ’s enforcement action altogether by successfully invoking the compliance defense before a federal judge.” Stephenson discounts subpart 1 because DOJ lawyers already take a company’s compliance program into account. But his second subpart is even more important because no company will go to trial against the government using a compliance defense to a demonstrable FCPA violation. Leaving aside the Arthur Anderson effect, no company is going to risk losing at trial when they can control their own fate through settlement. The modern day Knights seeking the Holy Grail of a compliance defense will never find it because of this last fact. Moreover, just as there were no real Knights who could meet the requirements to actually find the Holy Grail after their quest, there are no companies which can meet the same criteria; that being that a compliance defense could or even should trump a FCPA violation.

So we leave our King Arthur themed week with our quest intact, bringing message I hope that you have ascertained in these five posts about some of the things you need to do around the ‘nuts and bolts’ of anti-corruption compliance. I also hope that you might be able to look at the tales surrounding the King Arthur myth for your own inspiration.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

The Houston Astros and a Compliance Defense in the FCPA

It is not as if I have tried not to write about the Houston Astros this year or that I am consciously ignoring them, it is simply that they are so not relevant they rarely seem to exist or at least raise their pathetic head for a compliance lesson or two. Not only are they on track to have the worst record in baseball for the fourth consecutive year but last week they had yet another 0.00 television rating. For those of you keeping score at home, this is the third time in less than one calendar year that no persons, registered through the Nielsen TV-rating system, indicated they watched an Astros game on television. Nevertheless in July the Astros managed to yet outdo themselves again in the field of idiotic statements and actions that were so profound they once again inform your compliance program and indeed those advocating the appending of a compliance defense to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

For the privilege of having the worst record in baseball over the past 3+ seasons, the Astros had the right to the No. 1 selection in this year’s baseball draft. With this year’s selection they took a high school pitcher, Brady Aiken. But for reasons only known to the Astros, they managed not to sign this year’s first round pick, for only the third time since the amateur draft began back in 1968. The sordid tale was laid out in a Grantland article entitled “Houston You Have a Problem” by Michael Baunmann.

After drafting Aikens, he and the Astros reached a handshake deal for a contract worth $6.9MM. Shortly thereafter, a medical examination “revealed that his left UCL (the ligament that gets replaced during Tommy John surgery) is unusually small.” Note this examination did not reveal any damage to the nerve or any injury, simply that Aikens’ UCL was small. So what did the Astros do? They reneged on their agreement (as in our word is really not our word) and then offered Aikens $3.5MM. Why would the Astros go back on their word? As explained by Baunmann “Tiny UCL Affair of 2014 was actually a smoke screen to cut Aiken’s bonus and use the savings to help sign other players. MLB regulates how much teams can spend on draft picks, and the Astros entered post-draft negotiations with an overall signing budget just north of $13 million. The league places a dollar amount on each draft pick in the first 10 rounds, so if you add up the numbers for each pick, you get the total salary cap each team is allowed to spend on its draftees. If one player signs for less than the recommended slot, the team can use the savings to sign other picks to richer bonuses, including players in the last 30 rounds, who’d ordinarily only be able to sign for $100,000. If a team goes over its spending limit, the league taxes the overage. If a team goes over by enough, it loses draft picks in coming years.” But it all backfired on the Astros who ended up with a big Nada.

In other words, the Astros were trying to game the system by underpaying its first round pick so they could use the saved money to pay to other picks. However, when they did not sign their No. 1 pick, under MLB rules they could not use any of the saved money on other picks. The Astros were accused by the Players Union of illegal action under the Collective Bargaining Agreement and a formal grievance has been filed against the Astros. But perhaps the most damning was this statement by Buanmann, “This isn’t about sabermetrics or how the Astros chose to rebuild. This is distinctly about the human element. If your word is not your bond, if you’re willing to brazenly exploit teenagers to gain an edge, endangering their educational and professional futures out of spite, you might lack an appreciation for the human element. I’d say you lack humanity altogether.”

I know you have all been waiting for the compliance angle to all of this so here it is. The Astros act like a corporation and like almost all corporations they look to pay the absolute cheapest that they can to get something. Those who advocate that there be a compliance defense added to the FCPA miss this fundamental tenet of the corporate world. Corporations that are unwilling to spend money to put a best practices or even adequate compliance program in place now, will not do so simply because an amended FCPA says they will have a defense if they do so. It is not a matter of having a compliance program in place, but doing compliance because doing compliance costs money. Since the Supreme Court has told us that corporations have the same rights as people, it makes sense that cheap corporations will not put in effective compliance programs, simply because they are cheap. If your business model for the past 35+ years has been that you are too cheap to follow the law and put in an effective compliance program, as required by the existing law, simply by amending the FCPA to add a compliance defense will not change your basic nature.

It costs time, money, effort and commitment to put a compliance program in place. By simply having language that says you will get credit for having a defense in place, corporations who are not committed to compliance will not magically get committed. These companies who are too cheap to follow the law now will simply throw a paper excuse up and then crow to the world that they have an adequate compliance program. The Astros, reported last year to be the most profitable baseball team of all-time and “a multimillion-dollar corporation that could find $3.4 million in the change jar on the nightstand, tried to nickel and dime a kid who’s trying to break into an industry that’s stacked the deck against him, and then they tattled on him to the NCAA once they failed to get their way.” If a compliance defense was amended to the FCPA, corporations will give even less money to the compliance function because they will sit smugly behind their paper compliance program and not devote the time, money or commitment required to having an adequate compliance program.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has continually made clear that company’s will receive credit for having a compliance program in place even where a potential FCPA violation occurs. The Morgan Stanley declination is but the most prominent publicly announced statement on the matter. Additionally, there are the six examples cited in the FCPA Guidance where declinations were issued, with the company identifying information scrubbed from the facts presented. Moreover, the US Sentencing Guidelines also touches directly on this point. So the importance of not only complying with a 35+ year old law but how to do so is easily apparent to any company which might be researching the issue.

It is not the lack of knowledge of how to comply with the FCPA which keeps a company from putting an effective compliance program in place but what might charitably be called a cost-aversion ethos. Just as with the Astros, cost-aversion exists in a wide number of areas outside FCPA compliance. In an article in the New York Times (NYT), entitled “Valeant’s Cost-Cutting Ethos May Yet Give Wall Street Indigestion”, Jesse Eisinger reported on the company’s attempt to rebrand the drug Sculptra for use as a “cosmetic touch-up” treatment when it had been approved for use by HIV patients with “facial wasting”. Valeant had purchased the drug from another pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, and also the “inherited the responsibility for conducting the study when it purchased the drug”

However, Valeant did not want to go through the time and expense of conducting the required clinical trials to have the drug approved for this new use. Eisinger wrote, “From the start, Valeant executives were concerned the study would cost too much, according to three current and former executives who spoke on condition of anonymity. The five-year safety study could cost $25 million to $40 million, according to Tage Ramakrishna, Valeant’s chief medical officer. According to the executives, the message was clear and emanated from Mr. Pearson: The company should try to avoid having to perform the study. Ryan Weldon, who until recently was the head of Valeant’s aesthetics business, said to one executive that “we’re not going to spend money on that,” referring to the study.” Eisinger also reported that even though the company never completed the required study, “the company sold the treatment.”

Beyond putting a compliance program in place, a company must actually do compliance. This means putting in a compliance function commensurate to the size and risk a company has with its business model. Not only must money be spent but compliance professionals hired and given real authority to help the company prevent, detect and remediate FCPA violations that may arise. Once again, if a company is not incentivized to follow a 35 year old law with as much enforcement publicity as the FCPA, saying they will be given credit for something they could already receive credit for, in the form of a compliance defense, is not going to change conduct or even attitudes.

I cannot think of a better way to sum this up than to pass along the Astros gift to their fan base, which they announced on Friday. They are raising ticket prices in 2015.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2014

Ahab Captures the White Whale: ‘In the Public Interest’ Defense to FCPA Enforcement

It is an axiom in the trial lawyer world that bad facts make bad law. The reason is if the facts are particularly egregious, most judges and juries will go out of their way to try and see that justice is served if not done. An example might be from the arena of toxic torts where companies with de minimis involvement with asbestos and silicosis are dragged into multi-million dollar, seemingly never ending, lawsuits, bankruptcy cases and other proceedings that bear no resemblance to a company’s actual liability. (We will leave the greedy plaintiff lawyer debate for another day.)

But if you are one of those folks who believe that Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecutions are inherently unfair, there is a case across the pond where some very bad facts might do some good for you. The former editor of the UK newspaper, The Sun, Rebekah Brooks is on trial for, in part, authorizing the payments of bribes to UK government officials to obtain information used in news stories. As reported in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Alexis Flynn, the article, entitled “Brooks Approved Payments to British Officials”, stated  “On the stand, Ms. Brooks, who edited News Corp’s Sun newspaper and its now-closed News of the World sister title, said the payments were made for good reasons, and done so on rare occasions and after careful consideration. “My view at the time was that there had to be an overwhelming public interest to justify payments in the very narrow circumstances of a public official being paid for information directly in line with their jobs,” said Ms. Brooks.”

For those of you keeping score at home, this was an admission by Ms. Brooks that ‘after careful consideration’ she violated the FCPA. But if you are the US Chamber of Commerce, other institutions or persons who believe there should be an affirmative defense to the FCPA, you should be jumping for joy about now as Ms. Brooks has articulated a new defense that you can graft upon. Let’s call it the ‘In the Public Interest’ defense. Clearly presaging the US National Football League (NFL) and its own scandal about bullying on the Miami Dolphins, Ms. Brooks stated in her testimony that it was ‘in the public interest’ to pay for information from UK military officials because it was “about the bullying of recruits at an army barracks.” I guess its too bad that she is no longer the editor of The Sun and on trial or she could pay bribes for the inside scoop on the Incognito/Martin/Dolphin bullying parties.

How might this new defense play out? The first point to note is that Ms. Brooks also apparently presaged the FCPA Guidance when she testified that she authorized bribery payments only after “careful consideration”. In other words, she thought through the process and decided that paying of bribes was merited. It is not clear from her testimony that she documented her decision making calculus but at least she properly recorded the payments as bribes because during its direct presentation, the prosecution had “already shown the jury what they said were records of payments made to military officials by the Sun during the period of Ms. Brooks’s editorship.” But, going further than the prosecution, her defense counsel, “Mr. Laidlaw read out loud extracts of the Sun articles that had resulted from payments to officials” thereby tying her decision to the payments made to the benefit obtained by the Sun for paying the bribes.” All rather brilliant wouldn’t you say? It’s the Dog Bite defense on steroids, I paid bribes but the world is a better place because I did so.

But, there was more as Ms. Brooks had a couple of other nuggets for those wanting an affirmative defense to the FCPA. In addition to being ‘in the public interest’ Ms. Brooks also said that were “good reasons”. While the WSJ article reported that the calculus of “careful consideration”; “information directly in line with their jobs” and “good reasons” were all tied together, some creative lawyering might disjoin them so that each of these factors alone might come to stand for a FCPA defense on its own. Just consider how far you could run with a defense to paying bribes where the bribes were paid with ‘good reason’.

Take that tacky part of the FCPA that talks about ‘obtaining or retaining business’. No longer a problem because the bribe was paid, not with the best intentions but with good reasons. All you have to do at trial is to show that your company made more money, your employees got to keep their jobs because you paid bribes to get that multi-million dollar contract or even perhaps that poor down-trodden government official in [name the country] was able to put food on his table for his impoverished family all because you stood up and paid a bribe. You might even claim that it was “the American thing to do” so that you could patriotically wrap your defense in the flag.

But for those Ahabs out there still chasing the white whale of the ultimate FCPA defense consider the final factor that Ms. Brooks articulated, “a public official being paid for information directly in line with their jobs.” With one fell swoop, you could complete eviscerate all FCPA prosecution if you only paid bribes to those who can help you directly in line with their jobs. Except for the Darwin Award winners out there who would pay bribes for government officials not directly in line with their jobs, it would certainly seem that you might have captured the great white whale himself with this prong.

However these are mere speculations about what the In the Public Interest defense would really look like in an American court. So for those of you who want to pay bribes and violate the FCPA, you should probably start with the following components (1) careful consideration; (2) good reasons; and (3) payments directly in line with the foreign government officials job. Lastly, for those persons who actually use this defense I do have some very good advice – get fitted for an orange jump suit, you are going to be wearing one for a very long time.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. © Thomas R. Fox, 2014

Compliance Defense– The Movie

In honor of The Movie Channel’s annual 28 days of Oscar, the upcoming Academy Awards and inspired by Jay Rosen’s prior career and the FCPA Professor’s hypothetical discussion between a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and his Chief Executive Officer (CEO) last week, in a post entitled “It’s More Like Bronze Dust”; I thought I might write about Compliance Defense- The Movie. So starting with the Professor’s fictional Scenario B…

Compliance Officer: Boss, I need more money and resources to devote to FCPA compliance.

Executive: Why?

Compliance Officer: Well, boss, an effective FCPA compliance program can reduce our legal exposure as a matter of law.

Executive: What do you mean?

Compliance Officer: Well, the money we spend on investing in FCPA best practices will be relevant as a matter of law.  In other words, if we make good faith efforts to comply with the FCPA when doing business in the international marketplace, we will not face any legal exposure when a non-executive employee or agent acts contrary to our compliance policies and/or circumvents our policies.

SIX MONTHS LATER…

 FADE IN

INTERIOR-OFFICE OF EXECUTIVE

In the heart of the energy capital of the world, in a darkened office, CEO reads a letter from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which informs him that his company is under investigation for payments to third parties that may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

CEO

(screaming) Ms. Pepper – what is this letter about?

MS. PEPPER – the long time admin for the CEO comes hurriedly comes into CEO’s massive office.

MS. PEPPER

It is a letter from the DOJ saying we’re under investigation for allegedly paying some bribes.

CEO

Well get me that Compliance Officer, what’s his name?

MS. PEPPER

Don’t you remember you let him go 3 months ago, after he installed that compliance program software you saw advertised at Office Depot?

CEO

Well then take a letter to the DOJ and tell them that we have a compliance program and that should be an absolute defense to any claims against us. They obviously don’t know how seriously we take compliance around here.

MS. PEPPER

I am not sure that is enough sir, I think that the program has to be effective.

CEO

What do you mean effective? After the CCO installed the compliance program on our computer server, everyone knew they had to follow it. The people who work here follow the law and I won the “Mr. Ethical Award” from the Chamber of Commerce last year. Everyone around here knows to follow the law.

MS. PEPPER

Sir, I think that the CCO said that it is more than having a compliance program in place; you actually have to do compliance. He might even have said you need to put some resources into it to show you were serious.

CEO

I spent $5,000 on that software program, which is pretty serious. Do you mean to say I have to do something else?

MS. PEPPER

Yes sir, I think that he said that not only does the program have to be effective, you have to be able to show it is effective.

CEO

Well that is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard, how are we supposed to compete if we can’t help out our friends so they stay our friends? And besides if any bribes were paid it’s because those greedy foreigners have their hands out. Surely we can’t be responsible for that?

The above dialogue is (hopefully) fictional. Unfortunately it may well be more close to the truth than we like to think. Those who have worked in the corporate world will know any costs which are indirect costs, such as compliance, are viewed as something to be avoided. This means spending money and providing personnel for compliance will be kept to the barest minimum. This is the major problem I see with thinking that a compliance defense is or should be a magic bullet for any corporation to use in a FCPA matter. Every compliance professional I have spoken with on this subject understands that your company will receive a free pass by having a written compliance program, then many companies will install such a paper program. For it is not having a program that is the critical factor but it is the doing of compliance, which makes a program effective.

Equally important is that for a compliance program to be effective, it has to evolve because both the sophistication of compliance and the risks in business evolve. Ten years ago, having a paper program was in the running to make your company an industry leader. Today, having only a paper program is a recipe for disaster. Just as risks evolve, so does the management of those risks. Continuous monitoring was not even considered 10 years ago. It has gone from an enhanced compliance solution, to a best practice, to a standard practice. Five years ago, most lawyers thought that distributors would not be subject to the FCPA because in a distributor sales model, they took title and risk of loss for the products they purchased. But it turns out that bribery and corruption can occur through a distributor sales model, just as it can through a sales agent model.

The clear model for all of this is the dramatic change that companies made in how they viewed safety on the job. Many point to the Exxon Valdez shipwreck as the seminal moment to see the shift in how safety was viewed by corporate America. Certainly after this event, Exxon made safety priority Number 1 in its corporate culture. As a trial lawyer defending corporations, I saw the shift to make safety ingrained into corporate culture in the energy industry, driven in large part by massive jury awards and high insurance premiums paid by corporations to cover those costs. The business solution was not only to put safety programs in place but also to run the business safely. This was drilled down even to those of us in corporate legal departments, not just the guys out on the drilling rigs or in the petrochemical plants.

In the corporate world there existed no magic bullet in the form of safety programs as an absolute defense to a company that violated its own or federal safety laws. Companies invested more money in safety because the costs of not doing so were greater. Under the FCPA, there currently is credit given for companies who have an effective compliance program. It is set out in the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines and discussed at some length in the FCPA Guidance. Such credit is given in the form of declinations to prosecute. While I wish that there was more public information made available on why the DOJ gives declinations, this lack of public information does not diminish the fact that they exist or that companies are clearly given credit for having an effective compliance program in place or simply doing compliance.

I began this post with a (hopefully) fictional dialogue. One thing I am not certain about though is what category it should sit in, comedy; drama or perhaps even tragedy. Enjoy the Oscar season.

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Although I do disagree with the FCPA Professor on the need for a compliance defense under the FCPA, one thing I do agree with him about is his creation of a best in class compliance training video, which he announced Monday. I have had the opportunity to view the full version and it is excellent recap of the FCPA and the obligations under the law. It has an interactive aspect that allows learning and practice with situations that is both instructive and enjoyable. As you would expect from the FCPA Professor, it has the text to drive greater understanding for those who might wish to do so. So if your company needs a first-rate FCPA training module, you should check this one out. You can do so by clicking here.

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This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2014