Miss Marple Short Stories and SEC Enforcement of the FCPA, Part V – Final Thoughts

I conclude my week of exploration of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple short stories and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by reviewing some of the new things I’ve learnt during this week of research. I learned that Christie made several social observations and revealed much about herself through these stories. She is very much constrained by the roles given to women in the early to mid-1920s, including the lack of a proper education. She also writes about some of the disdainful attitudes of people to an older woman. I found a number of inside jokes that Christie placed into the stories, even referring to the prevalence of detective fiction in print and on the stage at the time the stories were written. Finally is the fact that people make the mistake of not noticing her but that she is watching them and listening and that they will remain unaware of her presence for not too much longer.

In his recent blog post, entitled “Are You An FCPA Contender Or Pretender?”, the FCPA Professor suggested that if you want to practice in the area of FCPA compliance, you really should take the time to read some of the very few underlying sources and documents relating to the subject. After my week exploration of the SEC enforcement of the FCPA, I would note that you can learn quite a bit by heeding his advice.

Internal Controls

There was a trend, beginning in the fall of 2014 of SEC FCPA enforcement actions, where the Department of Justice (DOJ) either declined to prosecute the company or settled with the company via a Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA). This led me to conclude that the SEC was ramping up its review and enforcement of the accounting provisions under the FCPA separate and apart from criminal side enforcement of the FCPA by the DOJ. Earlier this month, when Andrew Ceresney, the SEC Director, Division of Enforcement, spoke at CBI’s Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress in Washington DC he discussed the importance of internal controls in SEC enforcement. While his remarks were primarily directed “in the context of financial reporting” I believe they could be equally applicable in the FCPA compliance context.

Ceresney said, “What kinds of practice pointers for how to avoid these issues? Well, in cases we have brought, we see controls that were not carefully designed to match the business, or that were not updated as the business changed and grew. And we see that senior leadership was not asking the tough questions – and sometimes not even asking the easy questions. Senior management in some cases was just not engaged in any real discussion about the controls. As a result, employees did not properly focus on them and the firm and its shareholders are put at risk.” I think these statements, particularly taken in the context of his overall remarks, portend a greater focus on internal controls review and enforcement in the FCPA context.

Finally, in the area of internal controls, is the interplay of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) with FCPA enforcement and several sections of the Act that have FCPA implications. These include SOX §302 that requires the principle officers of a company to “take responsibility for and certify the integrity of these company’s financial reports on a quarterly basis.” Under SOX §404 companies must present annually their conclusion “regarding the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls over accounting.” Finally, SOX §802 prohibits “altering, destroying, mutilating, concealing or falsifying records, documents or tangible objects” with the intent to obstruct or influence a federal investigation, such as the FCPA.

Every public company is required to report on its internal controls. The SEC may well start mining those required, annual public disclosures for information on compliance internal controls. If the SEC finds a company’s report lacking and then after requesting further information, still finds a company’s response lacking, a company may be looking at strict liability and a financial penalty based on profit disgorgement as I lay out next.

Strict Liability

I have written about the coming of strict liability to the SEC enforcement of the FCPA’s accounting provisions, including books and records and internal controls. However, after having read, re-read and reviewed the FCPA and commentary, I now believe that a strict liability interpretation for enforcement of the FPCA is fully supported by the plain language of the Act itself. I come to this conclusion because there is no language in the text of the Act that ties the accounting provision requirements to any other operative violation of the statute. In other words, there is no language that says that an accounting provisions violation must be tied to an offer or payment of a bribe to obtain or retain business. While the FCPA does not specifically say that a company will be strictly liable for a violation of the accounting provisions, it is certainly not prohibited. Since violations of the accounting provisions as enforced by the SEC are civil violations only, I now believe that such a position is not prohibited by the Act.

Profit Disgorgement 

Similar to my views on strict liability for accounting violations, I have also come to believe that profit disgorgement is a remedy fully supported and available to the SEC in FCPA enforcement actions. This change was made by an un-related law, entitled The Penny Stock Reform Act of 1990, which amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to: allow the SEC to (1) impose tiered civil money penalties pursuant to administrative findings of violations of the Act; (2) enter an order requiring an accounting and disgorgement; (3) issue cease and desist orders; and (4) issue temporary restraining orders. Profit disgorgement has generally been considered an equitable remedy. Sasah Kalb and Marc Alain Bohn, in their article “Disgorgement: The Devil You Don’t Know”, wrote “As an equitable remedy, disgorgement is not intended as tool to punish, but as a vehicle for preventing unjust enrichment. The SEC is therefore only permitted to recover the approximate amount earned from the alleged illicit activities. Disgorging anything more would be considered punitive.”

In conjunction with this equitable nature for profit disgorgement, is the concept of proportionality. In the article by David C. Weiss, entitled “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, SEC Disgorgement of Profits and the Evolving International Bribery Regime: Weighing Proportionality, Retribution and Deterrence”, he wrote that regarding proportionality “punishment schemes fail a utilitarian test when the punishment exceeds, or threatens to exceed, the offense. Put another way, deterrence requires that a punishment be proportionate to the harm—allowing for some multiplier based on the likelihood of being caught. Punishments that are not proportionate are not justified under this utilitarian theory.”

Profit Disgorgement as a Remedy for Strict Liability

In this final section, I give my opinion as to where I think the next step of SEC enforcement may be headed. I think it will be a combination of the enforcement of the accounting provisions of the FCPA through a strict liability reading of them by the SEC to the remedy of profit disgorgement. Admittedly this opinion seems contrary to the equitable nature of the remedy of profit disgorgement. However the greater focus of SEC scrutiny and enforcement of the accounting provisions point me in that direction. While it is also true that profit disgorgement has traditionally required some specific ill-gotten gains; with the statutory authority provided by the Penny Stock Act to the SEC allows for disgorgement with no language around its equitable beginning, this may be enough for the SEC to make such an intellectual leap. Further, as noted by Kalb and Bohn, “Because calculations like these often prove difficult, courts tend to give the SEC considerable discretion in determining what constitutes an ill-gotten gain by requiring only a reasonable approximation of the profits which are causally connected to the violation.”

The final component is the lack of judicial review in FCPA enforcement actions. Every practitioner is aware of the absolute dearth of cases in this area. With the SEC moving towards more administrative actions, through the 2010 Dodd-Frank amendment that enables the SEC to collect civil penalties through administrative proceedings, there may not be many federal district court reviews going forward. Of course to have a federal district court review of a remedy, it generally takes the defendant to make some objection and companies seemingly do not wish to take on the SEC in any FCPA enforcement matter (or the DOJ for that matter). But even if there was a federal district review of a Cease and Desist Order filed before it, you almost never hear the court reject an agreed Order on the grounds that the remedy was too harsh or unwarranted.

I hope you have enjoyed and learned something this week unique to the SEC enforcement of the FCPA. I know I have both enjoyed reading many of the excellent commentators I have reviewed during my research. David Weiss, Marc Alain Bohn, Sasha Kalb, Russ Ryan and the FCPA Professor have all contributed significant legal work and thought leadership in this area that I have built some of my theories on so I thank them for their contributions. Another joy was reading Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple short stories. If you have a few evenings or some down time for spring break or summer vacation, I suggest you pick up the volume. It is just like visiting with an old friend on a dark and stormy night…

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 Blue Geranium – SEC Enforcement of the FCPA – Part III

In Christie’s The Blue Geranium a difficult and cantankerous semi-invalid wife is looked after by a succession of nurses. They changed regularly, unable to cope with their patient, with one exception Nurse Copling who somehow managed the tantrums and complaints better than others of her calling. The wife had a predilection for fortunetellers and one announced that the wallpaper in the wife’s room was evil; pronouncing she should “Beware of the Full Moon. The Blue Primrose means warning; the Blue Hollyhock means danger; the Blue Geranium means death.” Four days later, one of the primroses in the pattern of the wallpaper in the wife’s room changed color to blue in the middle of the night, when there had been a full moon.

On the morning after the next full moon, the wife was found dead in her bed with only her smelling salts beside her. Once again Miss Marple has the solution remembering that potassium cyanide resembled smelling salts in odor. The wife took what she thought were smelling salts but was in reality potassium cyanide. The flowers on the wallpaper had been treated with litmus paper which the turned the geranium in question blue, which unmasked the killer.

I found this story to be an interesting way to introduce the topic of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) damage remedies. While some are obvious, such as the fines and penalties which are listed in the text of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), another one, that being profit disgorgement must be seen through the lens of multiple legislations.

Monetary Fines

The damages that are available to the SEC differ in some significant aspects from those available to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in its enforcement of the criminal side of the FCPA. According to the FCPA Guidance, “For violations of the anti-bribery provisions, cor­porations and other business entities are subject to a civil penalty of up to $16,000 per violation. Individuals, including officers, directors, stockholders, and agents of companies, are similarly subject to a civil penalty of up to $16,000 per violation, which may not be paid by their employer or principal. For violations of the accounting provisions, SEC may obtain a civil penalty not to exceed the greater of (a) the gross amount of the pecuniary gain to the defendant as a result of the violations or (b) a specified dollar limitation. The specified dollar limitations are based on the egregious­ness of the violation, ranging from $7,500 to $150,000 for an individual and $75,000 to $725,000 for a company.”

As straightforward as these monetary amounts may seem, the totals can become very large very quickly. As noted by Russ Ryan in a guest post on the FCPA Professor’s blog, entitled “Former SEC Enforcement Official Throws The Red Challenge Flag”, the SEC significantly multiplied those amounts in a default judgment context against former Siemens executives by claiming that “four alleged bribes should be triple-counted as three separate securities law violations – once as a bribe, again as a books-and-records violation, and yet again as an internal-controls violation – thus artificially multiplying four violations to create twelve.” Further, under the specific books-and-records and internal-controls allegations “the SEC was super aggressive, taking the position that these classically non-fraud violations involved “reckless disregard” of a regulatory requirement, thus allowing the SEC to demand the maximum $60,000 per violation in “second-tier” penalties rather than the $6,000 per violation in the “first-tier” penalties ordinarily associated with non-fraud violations.”

Profit Disgorgement

In addition to the above statutory fines and penalties, “SEC can obtain the equitable relief of disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and pre-judgment interest and can also obtain civil money penalties pursuant to Sections 21(d)(3) and 32(c) of the Exchange Act. SEC may also seek ancillary relief (such as an accounting from a defendant). Pursuant to Section 21(d)(5), SEC also may seek, and any federal court may grant, any other equitable relief that may be appropriate or necessary for the benefit of investors, such as enhanced remedial measures or the retention of an independent compliance consultant or monitor.” These remedies can be sought in a federal district court of through the SEC administrative process.

As explained by Marc Alain Bohn, in a blog post on the FCPA Blog entitled “What Exactly is Disgorgement?” profit “Disgorgement is an equitable remedy authorized by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that is used to deprive wrong-doers of their ill-gotten gains and deter violations of federal securities law. The Act gives the SEC the authority to enter an order “requiring accounting and disgorgement,” including reasonable interest, as part of administrative or cease and desist proceedings”. In another article Bohn co-authored with Sasha Kalb, entitled “Disgorgement – the Devil You Don’t Know” published in Corporate Compliance Insights (CCI), they set out how such damages are calculated. They said, “In calculating disgorgement, the SEC is required to distinguish between legally and illegally obtained profits. The first step in such calculations is to identify the causal link between the unlawful activity and the profit to be disgorged. Once this causal link is established, the SEC may assert its right to disgorge illicit profits that stem from this wrong-doing. Because calculations like these often prove difficult, courts tend to give the SEC considerable discretion in determining what constitutes an ill-gotten gain by requiring only a reasonable approximation of the profits which are causally connected to the violation.”

However if you read the FCPA quite closely you will not find any language regarding profit disgorgement as a remedy. Nevertheless a simple reading of the statute does not limit our inquiry as to this remedy. In a Note, published in the University of Michigan Journal of International Law, entitled “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, SEC Disgorgement of Profits and the Evolving International Bribery Regime: Weighing Proportionality, Retribution and Deterrence”, author David C. Weiss explained the development of the remedy of profit disgorgement. As noted by Bohn, profit disgorgement was always available to the SEC from the very beginning of its existence, through the enabling legislation of 1934. But as explained by Weiss, in the completely unrelated legislation entitled The Penny Stock Reform Act of 1990, profit disgorgement was “authorized by statute [as a remedy to the SEC] without a limitation to the FCPA.”

Finally, and what many compliance practitioners do not focus on for SEC enforcement of the FCPA, was the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). Weiss said, “The most recent change to the way in which the SEC enforces the FCPA—and a critical development to consider—is SOX, which affects virtually all of the SEC’s prosecutions, including those under the FCPA. When assessing penalties, the SEC draws on SOX to provide great latitude in determining the types of penalties it enforces. While SOX did not amend the FCPA itself, it did amend both civil and criminal securities laws relating to compliance, internal controls, and penalties for violations of the Exchange Act. Since the enactment of SOX, the SEC has possessed the power to designate how a particular penalty that it assesses will be classified.” [citations omitted]

There has been criticism of the SEC using profit disgorgement as a remedy. As far back as 2010, the FCPA Professor criticized this development in his article “The Façade of FCPA Enforcement” where he found fault with the remedy of profit disgorgement for books and records violations or internal controls violations only, where there is no corresponding “enforcement action charging violations of the anti-bribery provisions.” He wrote “It is difficult to see how a disgorgement remedy premised solely on an FCPA books and records and internal controls case is not punitive. It is further difficult to see how the mis-recording of a payment (a payment that the SEC does not allege violated the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions) can properly give rise to a disgorgement remedy.”

Bohn and Kalb said, “Over the last six years, disgorgement has served to significantly increase the financial loss that companies are exposed to in FCPA enforcement matters. In addition to the considerable civil penalties often imposed by the SEC as part of FCPA settlements, the SEC has made clear that it will not hesitate to seek recovery of large sums through disgorgement provided they are reasonably related to the alleged misconduct. Yet the methodology used by the SEC to support the amounts it seeks to disgorge has not been much discussed.  In the absence of adequate guidance as to how these sums are calculated, disgorgement poses an even greater risk in the current aggressive FCPA enforcement climate.” I would only add to their conclusion that profit disgorgement is here to stay.

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