Andrew Boutros and Markus Funk recently released (here) their article “Carbon Copy” Prosecutions: A Growing Anticorruption Phenomenon in a Shrinking World” published in The University of Chicago Legal Forum. Boutros is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the N.D. of Illinois and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School (who co-wrote the article in his personal capacity) and Funk is a partner at Perkins Coie. Boutros and Funk are Co-Chair’s of the ABA’s Global Anti-Corruption Task Force.
In summary, the authors, using recent enforcement actions, note as
follows.
“[I]f a corporation reaches a negotiated resolution with US authorities on international bribery-related charges—whether through a non-prosecution agreement, a deferred prosecution agreement, or a guilty plea—there is a bona fide risk that other countries will initiate prosecutions based on the same facts as, and admissions arising out of, the US investigation and resolution. [I]f an individual corporate officer is even tangentially involved or implicated in a US-negotiated resolution, that corporate officer—even if not named at all in the resolution—faces potential criminal charges overseas. The officer, therefore, has a strong incentive to ensure that the resolution either does not name him or her or describes the officer’s conduct in the most positive light (or at least neutrally). [The] Article examines this growing—but still largely under-recognized—international phenomenon of “carbon copy” prosecutions.”
What is a carbon copy prosecution? The authors define the term to mean “successive, duplicative prosecutions by multiple sovereigns for conduct transgressing the laws of several nations, but arising out of the same common nucleus of operative facts.”
The article then “details the myriad cost-benefit considerations that companies might weigh when deciding whether to make voluntary front-end disclosures to foreign authorities concurrently with their disclosures of potential FCPA violations to U.S. officials.” Among the considerations the authors identify is 5th Amendment double jeopardy issues and the collateral estoppel effect of U.S. resolutions on international enforcement actions and vice versa.
In addition, the authors note as follows. “The net effect of [DOJ and SEC FCPA settlement policies] is that when a company enters into a negotiated resolution with the DOJ – particularly in those cases with parallel SEC enforcement actions – it is essentially powerless to defend against, much less deny, the factual basis on which the resolution is based. This all but ensures that a company that settles with the DOJ – or both the DOJ and SEC in parallel proceedings – will have little or no choice but to settle with foreign authorities, should such authorities choose to exercise jurisdiction and enforce their corollary anticorruption laws.”
Although the notion of carbon copy prosecutions have been known for some time, Boutros and Funk’s article is an important contribution to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act literature and provides an analytical scrutiny to this observable trend. For this reason, the article should find a place on your reading stack.
Story from http://www.fcpaprofessor.com/carbon-copy-prosecutions-a-growing-anticorruption-phenomenon-in-a-shrinking-world?goback=%2Egde_4243319_member_181192434
“[I]f a corporation reaches a negotiated resolution with US authorities on international bribery-related charges—whether through a non-prosecution agreement, a deferred prosecution agreement, or a guilty plea—there is a bona fide risk that other countries will initiate prosecutions based on the same facts as, and admissions arising out of, the US investigation and resolution. [I]f an individual corporate officer is even tangentially involved or implicated in a US-negotiated resolution, that corporate officer—even if not named at all in the resolution—faces potential criminal charges overseas. The officer, therefore, has a strong incentive to ensure that the resolution either does not name him or her or describes the officer’s conduct in the most positive light (or at least neutrally). [The] Article examines this growing—but still largely under-recognized—international phenomenon of “carbon copy” prosecutions.”
What is a carbon copy prosecution? The authors define the term to mean “successive, duplicative prosecutions by multiple sovereigns for conduct transgressing the laws of several nations, but arising out of the same common nucleus of operative facts.”
The article then “details the myriad cost-benefit considerations that companies might weigh when deciding whether to make voluntary front-end disclosures to foreign authorities concurrently with their disclosures of potential FCPA violations to U.S. officials.” Among the considerations the authors identify is 5th Amendment double jeopardy issues and the collateral estoppel effect of U.S. resolutions on international enforcement actions and vice versa.
In addition, the authors note as follows. “The net effect of [DOJ and SEC FCPA settlement policies] is that when a company enters into a negotiated resolution with the DOJ – particularly in those cases with parallel SEC enforcement actions – it is essentially powerless to defend against, much less deny, the factual basis on which the resolution is based. This all but ensures that a company that settles with the DOJ – or both the DOJ and SEC in parallel proceedings – will have little or no choice but to settle with foreign authorities, should such authorities choose to exercise jurisdiction and enforce their corollary anticorruption laws.”
Although the notion of carbon copy prosecutions have been known for some time, Boutros and Funk’s article is an important contribution to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act literature and provides an analytical scrutiny to this observable trend. For this reason, the article should find a place on your reading stack.
Story from http://www.fcpaprofessor.com/carbon-copy-prosecutions-a-growing-anticorruption-phenomenon-in-a-shrinking-world?goback=%2Egde_4243319_member_181192434
