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A Focus On Australia

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

Today’s post is from Robert Wyld (Partner, Johnson Winter & Slattery – here). Wyld is the Australia Expert for FCPA Professor. Jasmine Forde (Senior Associate, Johnson Winter & Slattery) also contributed to this post.

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A FOCUS ON AUSTRALIA

For many years, bribery and corruption in Australia has taken a back seat to profitable enterprise. It was all considered a bit too foreign and something Australian companies simply did not do. All of a sudden, that changed in 2006 when the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) wheat sales to Iraq, corrupting the UN Oil-for-Food program, blazed across Australia’s public awareness. Since then, the media has treated us to a never-ending procession of allegations and sagas involving companies of the stature of Rio Tinto (with the corruption prosecution and imprisonment of former Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu in China), BHP and its now abandoned bauxite mining ventures in Cambodia, Leighton Holdings in the Middle East and as a standout, subsidiaries of Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia, engaged in potentially illegal conduct to secure lucrative polymer banknote printing contracts.

So what has been happening over the last few years? In short, a much more focused awareness of the risks that foreign corruption brings to corporations and individual liability and a legislative push to increase investigative powers and penalties to deter errant behaviour.

Legislative Developments Post AWB Wheat Saga in 2005

In 2007, the Australian government tightened up the weaknesses in Australian foreign corruption laws highlighted by the Cole Inquiry and AWB’s conduct. (The Cole Inquiry was a Royal Commission headed by a retired appellate Judge, The Hon Terence RH Cole AO, RFD, QC, who investigated AWB’s conduct and who formed the opinion that the company and various senior executives may have committed criminal and/or civil offences in connection with their wheat sales to Iraq under the UN Oil-For-Food Program.) Those involved:

ensuring the foreign law defence to bribery was reflected in a written foreign law; and
criminalising conduct in contravention of United Nations’ sanctions.

Between 2007 and 2010, the Australian Government established a Taskforce to investigate whether any of the identified AWB executives should be prosecuted. The Australian Federal Police (AFP), as the Australian federal investigative policy agency responsible for investigating contraventions of Australian laws, ultimately abandoned any criminal prosecution due to insufficient evidence to warrant a criminal case. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian corporate regulator, commenced civil penalty proceedings against 6 former AWB directors and officers alleging breach by those persons of their common law and/or statutory duties in connection with the AWB wheat sales and the payment of monies to Iraq and to third parties. The individuals are defending the cases, although in June 2012, both the former AWB Managing Director Andrew Lindberg and the CFO, Paul Ingolby, agreed to a settlement with ASIC and their penalties will be imposed by the Victorian Supreme Court in the future.

In 2010, primarily as a result of increasing focus on Australia’s inadequate penalties by the OECD and Transparency International, the Australian Government revised the applicable penalties for foreign corrupt offences. Those penalties were now set, for conduct post February 2010, as follows:

for an individual – imprisonment for up to 10 years, a fine of up to 10,000 penalty units (one penalty unit being AU$110, with the maximum fine, AU$1,100,000) or both; and
for a corporation – a fine being up to the greatest of 100,000 penalty units (or AU$11,000,000), 3 times the value of the benefit obtained directly or indirectly from the conduct or if the benefit cannot be determined, 10% of the corporation’s annual turnover during the period of 12 months ending at the end of the month in which the offending conduct occurred.

Section 70.2(6) of the Criminal Code defines “annual turnover” to be the sum of the value of all supplies that the corporation or any related corporation has made or are likely to make during the 12 month period subject to limited statutory exceptions.

These penalties are similar to the penalty regime which applies to the criminalisation of Australia’s cartel or anti-trust offences. It remains to be seen how they will be applied to a foreign bribery prosecution by an Australian Court.

In 2011, the Australian Government published a Consultation Paper reviewing a number of aspects of Australia’s foreign bribery laws. In particular, the Paper asked:

whether facilitation payments should remain as a defence to foreign bribery; and
whether a particular foreign official had to be identified in respect of which the alleged bribe was either paid, offered or promised to be paid.

It is unclear which way the Government will go, but the authors understand that the Government has received conflicting views on both abolishing and retaining the defence.

In April 2012, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers and Offences) Act 2012 amended the Australian Crime Commission Act (ACC Act) to enable Australian statutory and secretive crime agency, the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) to share information with corporations for a ‘permissible purpose’. Features of this new regime include the following:

section 59AB of the ACC Act enables the CEO of the ACC to disclose information to a prescribed body corporate, but only in circumstances where it would not prejudice the safety, or the fair trial, of a person who has been charged with an offence;
the ACC can impose conditions on the body corporate to ensure that the information is not used, and further disclosed, in a way that might prejudice the reputation of a person; and
the overriding purpose of the amendments is to facilitate cooperation between the private sector and the ACC to enable the ACC to combat serious and organised crime, which includes foreign bribery and corruption.

Aside from the privacy issues in connection with the use and disclosure of information, there are a number of practical challenges that arise, and present obvious risks, for a corporation in circumstances where one of its employees is the subject of an ACC investigation and subsequent disclosure, which include:

whether the information should be disclosed in the first place just to the corporation CEO, Chairman, or a wider group including General Counsel and, if applicable, any Head of Security;
if a person directly or indirectly makes a record of the information or discloses it to another person (other than for a specified purpose), that person has committed an offence with a potential penalty of up to 12 months’ imprisonment;
care must be taken to manage the storage of material constituting the disclosed information;
whether and if so, how the disclosed information interacts with a corporation’s continuous disclosure obligations to the market; and
whether the corporation should conduct its own internal investigation and if so, the impact that may have on any external official (or covert) investigation.

It remains to be seen how the ACC will handle this new power. It is hoped that the ACC will adopt a sensible and flexible approach, ensuring that any disclosure is undertaken co-operatively with a relevant corporation and the corporation is informed of whether any internal investigation may or may not impact on an official investigation.

Prosecutions

Since Australia criminalised foreign bribery in December 1999, until July 2011, there had been but a few investigations, no prosecutions and no convictions.

In July 2011, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) laid the first criminal charges against Securency International Pty Ltd and Note Printing Australia Pty Ltd, two subsidiaries of the Reserve Bank of Australia and various individuals, alleged to be involved in corrupt conduct to secure valuable polymer banknote printing contracts. Allegations suggested the Central Bank subsidiaries used foreign agents or intermediaries in various countries to pay or offer to pay bribes to foreign officials to secure the contracts to replace national paper currency with polymer (plastic) banknotes. These proceedings are continuing and are subject to suppression orders by the Courts in Victoria hearing the charges.

The AFP has a number of current referrals involving potential foreign bribing. Whether prosecutions occur in the future remains to be seen.

Current issues under review in Australia

The current anti-bribery regime in Australia still has many practical difficulties which are of concern, particularly in terms of advising and educating corporations on compliance with local and international laws.

The main issues of concern are:

1 Regulatory Body

The AFP investigates foreign bribery. Any prosecution is conducted by the (CDPP).

There is no one identified organisation or agency which can be approached if a corporation wishes to self-report a potential offence. While a potential offence can be reported to the AFP, the present structure simply requires the AFP to investigate and then determine if a brief should be presented to the CDPP. It is only the CDPP who is authorised to offer any inducement to a potential defendant to cooperate.

A regulator modelled on the US DOJ or UK SFO would be better positioned to educate, enforce, facilitate and provide guidance to corporations. Presently, that does not exist in Australia.

2 Facilitation Payments

This is regarded as one of the biggest risk areas. There is confusion in understanding any real distinction between a facilitation payment and a bribe, particularly in relation to hospitality, travel and education allowances. There is very little guidance regarding when these are acceptable commercial relationship activities and when they are considered to be a bribe. This is exacerbated by virtue of the fact that there are differences in the foreign bribery laws around the world where the US permit facilitation payments and offer official “guidance opinions’ while in the UK, facilitation payments do not exist.

The authors consider that facilitation payments should be abolished but until that time, the best advice is to look to the UK Bribery Act as the ‘gold standard’ and as far as possible, ban them from within your organisation.

3 Awareness of Foreign Bribery and Training

Awareness of the foreign bribery regimes outside of Australian Stock Exchange listed corporations is patchy at best. There is a great need for corporations to continually educate their employees and third party service providers so that they can put in place robust procedure and processes. Whilst some global companies now insist on anti-corruption clauses being included in contractual arrangements, it is by no means standard practice.

One need only look to the features of the recent investigation into Morgan Stanley in the US and the non-prosecution of the company in light of the rogue conduct of Mr Petersen in Chinese real estate speculation, to understand what a corporation must be able to demonstrate if it is to satisfy a regulator that it did all it could, in the circumstances, to prevent foreign bribery.

4 Lack of Prosecutions

To date, there has been no judicial enforcement in Australia which has had the effect of sending a message to the market that non-compliance is not an option.

The first prosecution under the legislation has taken 12 years and is still ongoing. The lack of prosecutions in Australia is not likely to be because Australian companies are compliant; rather, the better explanation appears to be that corporations:

(a) are simply not recording facilitation payments in accordance with the law (to do so would essentially be a self- admission with no protection and/or may expose relevant individuals to prosecution if the country they are dealing with does not allow for such payments);

(b) are failing to self-report any potential foreign bribery;

(c) are prepared to take a risk against prosecution, given the inherent complexity and cost associated with foreign bribery investigations; and

(d) accept that such controversial payments (either as a bribe or a facilitation payment) are simply the reality of doing business in some ‘risky’ jurisdictions.

5 Whistleblower Protection

Arguably, it is not considered culturally acceptable in Australia to ‘dob’ in a friend or colleague. However, recent research pioneered by Professor AJ Brown from Griffith University Queensland in conjunction with the University of Melbourne, suggests that over 80% of his sample considered it was more important to support whistleblowers for revealing serious wrongdoing than to punish them. The overall findings, released on 6 June 2012 (see www.newsroommelbourne.edu), suggest Australia is not a country where hostility to whistle blowers is the norm.

Currently, there is no incentive to be a whistleblower; monetary or otherwise and indeed, there can be severe, even criminal sanctions applied to certain individuals (Commonwealth employees) who blow the whistle. There is a need for legislative reform around whistleblower protection as the Australian Public Interest Disclosure Bill presently being considered by the Australian Parliament offers limited protection.

SEC Files Opposition Brief To Jackson and Ruehlen’s Motion To Dismiss

Monday, June 25th, 2012

This previous post discussed the February 2012 SEC FCPA enforcement action against Mark Jackson (former Noble Corporation CEO) and James Ruehlen (current Director and Division Manager of Noble’s subsidiary in Nigeria). The enforcement action is based on the same core set of facts alleged in the 2010 Noble Corporation enforcement action (see here for the prior post). The February 2012 post noted that unlike the vast majority of FCPA defendants (corporate and individual) charged in an SEC enforcement action, Jackson and Ruehlen appeared poised to launch a defense.

This previous post discussed Jackson’s and Ruehlen’s May 2012 motion to dismiss and noted the significance of the event in terms of the SEC’s FCPA enforcement program as the SEC is rarely put to its burden of proof in FCPA enforcement actions. To my knowledge, the Jackson and Ruehlen enforcement action represents the first time since the SEC lost the Mattson and Harris individual enforcement actions in 2002 (see here for a prior post discussing the case) that the Commission will be put to its burden of proof in an FCPA enforcement action.

Last Friday the SEC filed its opposition to the motion to dismiss (here) and in summary fashion the SEC’s opposition brief states as follows.

“The Complaint charges defendants Jackson and Ruehlen, a former and current senior officer of Noble Corporation (“Noble”), respectively, with multiple violations of the anti-bribery and accounting provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1, and other violations of the federal securities laws. Noble, an international oil drilling company, used for years an intermediary “customs agent” to pay bribes to government officials of the Nigerian Customs Service and other Nigerian government officials. Jackson and Ruehlen were intimately involved in arranging, approving, falsely booking, and concealing Noble’s bribe payments to foreign officials. Together, the defendants participated in paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to improperly obtain approximately eight illegitimate duty exemptions, known as temporary import permits (“TIPs”), and twenty-two TIP extensions. These TIPs and extensions were obtained illicitly so that Noble’s oil rigs offshore in Nigeria could continue to operate under lucrative drilling contracts. Jackson approved the payments and concealed the payments from Noble’s audit committee and auditors. Ruehlen prepared false documents as to the movement of the rigs, sought approval for the payments from Jackson and others at Noble, and processed and paid the bribe money to the intermediary customs agent.

Defendants contend that the Commission has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted pursuant to FRCP 12(b)(6). They attack the sufficiency of the Complaint in scattershot fashion, but their arguments distilled to their essence advance six primary arguments for dismissal:

First, the defendants argue that the SEC must allege the “specific identity” of Nigerian officials for whom the defendants authorized the payment of bribes. This line of argument finds no support in the text, legislative history, case law, or purposes of the FCPA. Defendants authorized bribes to foreign officials through intermediaries. The Complaint identifies the officials by country and government agency and alleges defendants’ corrupt intent to improperly influence those officials through the payment of money. Neither the FCPA nor the notice pleading standards of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) require anything more. As the language, text, legislative history and policies of the FCPA confirm, a violation of its provisions rests with the intent of the person authorizing the bribes, not with the identity or role of the official targeted for bribery. The name, title or exact position of the official need not be pleaded or proved, as confirmed by decisions under analogous domestic bribery statutes.

Second, the defendants argue that the Complaint fails to allege facts to support the inference that their payments fell outside of the FCPA’s statutory “routine governmental action” (a.k.a. “facilitating payments”) exception. Yet, the SEC is not required to plead preemptively around a statutory exception that a defendant might invoke. For over a century, including in the securities context, the Supreme Court has held that a pleading based on a general provision that defines the elements of a statutory violation need not negate an exception made by proviso or otherwise to those elements. The “facilitating payments” exception fits that rule. Thus, the defendants, not the SEC, must raise the exception’s application in the pleadings and prove its applicability at trial. Moreover, the Complaint satisfies any purported need to “plead around” the exception. The well-pled facts, such as that the bribes were paid to induce foreign officials to falsely certify facts and accept false paperwork, indicate that defendants’ bribes were not “facilitating payments,” i.e., payments authorized to expedite or secure the performance of an ordinarily or commonly performed official act.

Third, Ruehlen claims that the FCPA’s routine government action exception is unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. Claims of this nature have been soundly rejected by the courts, including by the Fifth Circuit. Also, the Complaint abundantly alleges that Ruehlen sought and obtained authorizations to pay bribes that cannot be understood reasonably as anything other than crossing the line of prohibited conduct.

Fourth, the defendants contend that the Complaint does not allege facts giving rise to the inference that they acted “corruptly.” This attack on the Complaint ignores the well-pled facts and misconstrues the law. The legislative history of the FCPA and the decisions in the Fifth Circuit and elsewhere reject defendants’ definition of “corruptly.” Defendants also overlook that states of mind, such as intent and purposes, may be alleged generally. The Complaint alleges defendants’ corrupt intent, and the allegations are supported by ample facts.

Fifth, the defendants seek to dismiss the Complaint as insufficiently pleading alleged securities violations other than bribery. Defendants, for example, argue that the SEC fails to specify the books and records that were falsified and the internal controls that they evaded. Defendants’ line of arguments directed to these issues are, first, largely premised on their attack on the Commission’s bribery claims – an attack that this Court should reject. In addition, the defendants simply ignore the facts actually pled in the Complaint. The allegations set forth in great detail what Jackson and Ruehlen claim not to find in the Complaint, including identifying the books and records falsified and the internal controls evaded or not implemented.

Sixth, the defendants argue that the Complaint is untimely because the applicable statute of limitations permits relief only for conduct occurring five years before the filing of the Complaint on February 24, 2012. Yet buried in footnotes in their briefs, the defendants admit that they signed tolling agreements extending the statute of limitations. The Complaint alleges violative conduct within the limitations period even absent the tolling agreement. What is more, various equitable doctrines would apply to toll the statute. And the statute of limitations does not apply to claims for equitable relief such as injunctions.

Finally, throughout each of their briefs, defendants intermittently challenge facts asserted in the Complaint, advance facts not alleged in the Complaint but purportedly reflected elsewhere, and argue for inferences favorable to them. At the pleadings stage, these arguments are not a proper basis for granting a motion to dismiss and must be rejected. The Commission has stated a claim upon which relief may be granted for each of Claims One through Seven, and defendants’ motions to dismiss should be denied.”

For Your Listening Enjoyment

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

On June 5th, the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education in cooperation with Dorsey & Whitney & LLP and Pepper Hamilton LLP sponsored a program titled “The New Era of FCPA Enforcement and the Collapse of the Africa Sting Cases: Time to Reevaluate?”

I was pleased to participate along with John Buretta (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice); Charles Cain (Deputy Chief, FCPA Unit, Securities and Exchange Commission); France Chain (Senior Legal Analyst, Anti-Corruption Division, OECD); Stanley Sporkin; and Eric Bruce (Partner, Kobre & Kim LLP). The program was moderated by Thomas Gorman (Partner, Dorsey & Whitney LLP) and Frank Razzano (Partner, Pepper Hamilton LLP).

An audio version of the 90 minute program can be downloaded here. Below is a breakdown of topics discussed along with the approximate minute mark(s) of the discussion.

4 – 11 minutes – Eric Bruce (defense counsel in the Africa Sting case) provides an inside view of the case.

11 – 13 minutes – discussion of 78dd-3 jurisdictional issues, including in the Africa Sting case

13 – 19 minutes – discussion of various issues including corporate FCPA resolutions, whether the DOJ is more of a regulator than prosecutor in FCPA cases, and the DOJ’s view of the Africa Sting cases including whether it learned anything from the cases

19 – 24 minutes – Stanley Sporkin weighs in as to the origins of the FCPA’s books and records and internal control provisions, says that the DOJ was hunting in the wrong place in the Africa Sting cases and says that FCPA enforcement needs to get back to the basics of “blocking and tackling”

25 – 30 minutes – discussion of the “foreign official” issue in which the DOJ says that “no one really conveys that they are confused” about what “foreign official” means

30 – 38 minutes – discussion of facilitation payments and whether the enforcement agencies have ignored this statutory exemption

38 – 41 minutes – I raise the question of whether the FCPA has morphed into an all-purpose corporate ethics or governance statute and discussion regarding what is the best way to expand the FCPA – through charging decisions or through Congressional action

42 – 50 minutes – discussion of compliance issues and how best to reward corporate compliance as well as the recent Garth Peterson / Morgan Stanley case in which I pose to the DOJ and the SEC the question of whether the outcome would have been any different if the FCPA had a formal compliance defense

50 – 55 minutes – discussion of miscellaneous issues including transparency in enforcement, cooperation issues and self-reporting

55 – 67 minutes – further discussion of compliance issues, including whether a compliance defense would be a “race to the bottom” or a “race to the top,” whether there is a Washington D.C. beltway view on FCPA compliance, and whether the increase in FCPA enforcement is doing anything to properly incentivize business conduct

67 – 71 minutes – discussion of whether there is any practical difference in the corporate liability standards in the U.K. Bribery Act and the FCPA

72 – 76 minutes – further discussion of the Africa Sting cases

77 – 79, 83 – 86 minutes – DOJ responds to a question regarding FCPA guidance, including timing and specifics

80 – 83 minutes – discussion as to whether it is acceptable not to self-report if the company otherwise implements a variety of internal remedial measures

87 – 89 – once again the issue of whether the DOJ has learned anything from the Africa Sting cases

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If you are aware of other FCPA video or audio programs and would like to provide a similar annotation as to issues, please consider this an open invitation to do a guest post as many could benefit.

SEC To Be Put To Its Burden – Motion To Dismiss Filed In Jackson And Ruehlen Enforcement Action

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

In February, the SEC announced here charges against “three oil services executives [associated with Noble Corporation] with violating the FCPA by participating in a bribery scheme to obtain illicit permits for oil rigs in Nigeria in order to retain business under lucrative drilling contracts.” Previously Noble Corporation (along with several other companies in an enforcement action I dubbed CustomsGate) resolved an FCPA enforcement action involving both a DOJ and SEC component (total settlement amount was approximately $8.2 million ($2.6 million criminal fine via a non-prosecution agreement; $5.6 million in disgorgement and interest via a SEC complaint) – see here for the prior post.

Like the vast majority of FCPA defendants in SEC enforcement actions, one of the individual defendants, Thomas O’Rourke (the former controller and head of internal audit at Noble Corporation), chose to settle the SEC’s complaint without admitting or denying the SEC allegations.

Not so with the other two individual defendants: Mark Jackson (former Noble Corporation CEO) and James Ruehlen (current Director and Division Manager of Noble’s subsidiary in Nigeria). This prior post contained the comments of Jackson’s lawyer, David Krakoff (here - BuckleySandler) who stated as follows: “We unequivocally deny the SEC’s baseless allegations. Mr. Jackson will vigorously defend himself in court where the evidence will show what the SEC already knows, that at all times Mr. Jackson acted in good faith at Noble. He looks forward to clearing his good name in this proceeding.” The prior post also contained the comments of Ruehlen’s lawyer F. Joseph Warin (here - Gibson Dunn & Crutcher) who stated that “the claims against Mr. Ruehlen are wrong and they will be proven so at trial.”

I noted in the prior post that this could get interesting as the SEC is rarely put to its burden of proof in FCPA enforcement actions (or any of its actions for that matter).

Yesterday Jackson and Ruehlen filed separate motions to dismiss (see here and here).

To my knowledge, this is the first time since the SEC lost the Mattson and Harris individual enforcement actions in 2002 (see here for a prior post discussing the case) that the Commission will be put to its burden of proof in an FCPA enforcement action.

Thus, yesterday’s motion is a significant event in terms of the SEC’s FCPA enforcement program.

The remainder of this post summarizes the motion to dismiss (internal citations omitted).

Ruehlen Motion to Dismiss

Ruehlen was charged in the SEC complaint (here) with Count 1 - FCPA anti-bribery violations; Count 2 – aiding and abetting Noble Corp’s FCPA anti-bribery violations; Count 3 - aiding and abetting Noble Corp’s failures to make and keep accurate books, records, and accounts and to devise and maintain internal accounting controls; and Claim 4 knowingly circumventing Noble’s internal controls and falsifying or causing to be falsified Noble’s books, records, and accounts in violations of FCPA’s books and records provisions.

In summary, the motion states as follows.

“Despite the repetition of the word “bribe” fifty-three times in its Complaint, Plaintiff fails to allege a violation of law. The FCPA distinguishes between prohibited corrupt payments made to obtain or retain business (i.e., bribes), and permissible payments to “secure the performance of a routine governmental action,” such as “obtaining permits, licenses, or other official documents” or for “processing governmental papers” (i.e., facilitation payments). The Complaint assumes that all payments to foreign officials are per se illegal bribes, never acknowledging the FCPA’s exception for facilitation payments.

The distinction between a permissible facilitation payment and an unlawful bribe turns on the purpose and effect of the payment, namely whether it is being made to induce the recipient to act improperly based on his or her particular role, duties, or responsibilities in order to obtain or retain business—facts that the SEC must allege to state a claim. Despite investigating this matter for nearly five years, the SEC apparently does not know—and therefore cannot allege—the identity, role, duties, or responsibilities of any “Nigerian government officials” to whom Noble or Mr. Ruehlen allegedly authorized payments. By failing to identify the particular foreign officials to whom Noble and Mr. Ruehlen allegedly authorized payments, Mr. Ruehlen and this Court are simply left to guess whether the alleged unidentified government officials had the power to assist Noble in obtaining or retaining business by engaging in non-routine governmental action, as the statute requires. Accordingly, the SEC fails to satisfy its burden of pleading plausible facts under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 and Twombly that the payments at issue were prohibited bribes under the FCPA, rather than lawful facilitation payments.

Second, without identifying the intended recipients of the alleged payments or alleging facts showing how these officials abused their authority on Noble’s behalf, Plaintiff fails to allege that Mr. Ruehlen acted “corruptly,” that is, with “a bad purpose or evil motive,” or with the “intent to influence a foreign official to misuse his official position.” To the contrary, the Complaint shows that Mr. Ruehlen reasonably believed that the payments were proper because, among other things, they had been reviewed and approved by Noble’s senior management who were tasked with ensuring Noble’s compliance with the FCPA and approving facilitation payments. The failure to plausibly allege facts showing corrupt intent provides an independent basis to dismiss the claims against Mr. Ruehlen.

Third, to the extent that Plaintiff’s first and second claims against Mr. Ruehlen survive these challenges, the Court must nevertheless dismiss them because the law in effect at the time failed to give Mr. Ruehlen “fair notice” of the interpretation now being advanced by the SEC in this case. In addition, the SEC’s strained and subjective interpretation of the FCPA’s facilitation payment exception makes it impossible for well-intentioned individuals to navigate between lawful and unlawful conduct and, therefore, is unconstitutionally vague as applied to Mr. Ruehlen.

Fourth, Claims 3 and 4 must be dismissed because the SEC fails to specify the particular book, record, or account that it claims Mr. Ruehlen knowingly falsified (or unreasonably caused to be false) or the particular internal control that he allegedly knowingly circumvented. Additionally, to the extent that the alleged violations refer to Noble’s decision to treat the special handling fees as facilitation payments rather than bribes, these violations are entirely predicated on the underlying FCPA violations alleged in Claims 1 and 2. Finally, this action is governed by the five-year statute of limitations. Because the claims against Mr. Ruehlen are principally based on alleged conduct that occurred outside the limitations period and because the SEC raises no basis for tolling, they are time-barred and must be dismissed.”

Jackson Motion to Dismiss

Jackson was charged in the SEC complaint (here) with Count 1 – FCPA anti-bribery violations; Count 2 – aiding and abetting Noble Corp’s FCPA anti-bribery violations; Count 3 – aiding and abetting Noble Corp’s failures to make and keep accurate books, records, and accounts and to devise and maintain internal accounting controls; Count 4 knowingly circumventing Noble’s internal controls and falsifying or causing to be falsified Noble’s books, records, and accounts in violations of FCPA’s books and records provisions and Rule 13b2-1; Count 5 – misleading auditors; Count 6 – signing false certifications; and Count 7 – control person liability.

In summary the motion states as follows.

“The Complaint against Jackson must be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) because it fails to state a claim that is plausible on its face. Only factual allegations—not unsupported conclusions or accusations of legal violations—may sustain a Complaint. But, stripped of its conclusions about what Jackson “knew,” the Complaint comes up woefully short in pleading several essential elements of Claim I, a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) anti-bribery violation—that Jackson acted with corrupt intent, and that he knew payments would be made to a foreign official to obtain sought-after unlawful acts from that foreign official. Instead, the factual allegations in the Complaint regarding alleged bribes are equally consistent, if not more, with wholly legal actions under the “facilitating payments” exception to the FCPA. The bribery claim therefore must be dismissed as implausible under controlling Supreme Court precedent. And because the other claims in the Complaint are entirely dependent on the existence of illegal bribes, they too must be dismissed. Finally, because the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the Complaint took place well over five years before the Complaint was filed, the bribery claim and many of the derivative claims are barred by the statute of limitations.”

An Important FCPA Case You’ve Likely Never Heard About

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Last week (here) I noted, in connection with Wal-Mart’s potential FCPA exposure, that the enforcement theory that payments outside the context of foreign government procurement fall under the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions has been subjected to judicial scrutiny three times. After summarizing those three instances, I noted that the scorecard was as follows: US – 1; Defendants – 2; or if you prefer US – .5; Defendants – 2.5 (recognizing that the 5th Circuit decision in Kay is equivocal).

Last week in doing some research, I stumbled upon a fourth instance where this enforcement theory was subjected to judicial scrutiny.

The result? DOJ lost.

Thus, the scorecard is as follows when an enforcement agency is put to its burden of proof on the enforcement theory that payments outside the context of foreign government procurement fall under the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions: US – 1; Defendants – 3; or if you prefer US – .5; Defendants – 3.5 (again recognizing that the 5th Circuit decision in Kay is equivocal).

This 1990 FCPA enforcement action is so obscure it was not even cited in any of the decisions of the other challenges which occurred between 2002-2004. For instance, in the Kay trial court decision in 2002, the court stated that it was confronting an issue of first impression in the federal courts.

Below is a summary of U.S. v. Alfredo Duran.

AEA Aircraft Recovery (“AEA”) was a division of Summerland Engineering Corp. (a Florida corporation) and engaged in the business of recovery of seized aircraft. The sole shareholder of Summerland was Robert Gurin.

In 1989, the DOJ charged Joaquin Pou (a Dominican Republic citizen and an agent of AEA, Summerland and Gurin), Alfredo Duran (a U.S. citizen and agent of AEA, Summerland, and Gurin) and Jose Guasch (a U.S. citizen and agent of AEA, Summerland, and Gurin) with conspiracy to violate the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions. See here for the criminal indictment. In a criminal information (see here) the DOJ also charged Robert Gurin.

According to the charging documents, the defendants conspired to make payments to officials of the Dominican Republic in order to obtain the release of two aircraft seized by the government of the Dominican Republic. The charging documents then proceed to set forth various acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Gurin and Guasch pleaded guilty and Pou (a citizen of the Dominican Republic) became a fugitive. Gurin was sentenced to 5 years probation and 100 hours of community services and Guasch was sentenced to 4 years probation, 1 month of house arrest and 75 hours of community service.

Duran, a former Florida state Democratic Party chairman, pleaded not guilty and put the DOJ to its burden of proof at trial. At the close of the DOJ’s case, he filed a motion for judgment of acquittal (see here). Duran argued that “no reasonable jury could find that the purpose of any of the alleged intended payments was to assist [...] in obtaining or retaining business” and that the government “has failed to adduce sufficient evidence to prove any intended payments were not facilitating or expediting payments for the purpose of expediting or securing routine governmental action (i.e. grease payments).”

The motion stated that “the legislative history to the 1977 Act makes clear that the evil redressed by the Act was the use of bribery by U.S. corporations to obtain contracts for the sale of good or services to foreign countries.” The motion then referenced that in 1988 Congress “created an exception for expediting or facilitating payments for the purpose of securing routine governmental action.” The motion stated, “by clear implication, payments in respect of the awarding of procurement contracts of the foreign government are the type of payments targeted” by the FCPA.

The motion then stated as follows. “The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the government, shows at best that payments were to be made to Joaquin Pou and, through him, to unidentified Dominican government officials for the purpose of obtaining the release of a single aircraft to its owner. Clearly, this is not what Congress intended by the phrase obtaining or retaining business … The fact that this intended payment may have indirectly benefited Gurin’s business by facilitating the release of an aircraft does not establish the type of direct business purpose contemplated by the statute.” Duran argued that “the government has failed to establish that the intended payments in this case were for the specific purpose of obtaining or retaining business … and, accordingly, a judgment of acquittal should be entered.

Turning next to facilitating payments, the motion argued that “the government bears the burden of disapproving that the payment was not a ‘facilitating or expediting payment” and that had “Congress intended the ‘facilitating or expediting payment exception’ to be an affirmative defense, it would have placed it” in the portion of the FCPA containing affirmative defenses. The motion stated as follows. “By its nature, therefore, the exception creates an additional element which the government must disprove beyond a reasonable doubt to establish the crime.” The motion then goes through the legislative history of facilitating payments and how in the original FCPA the concept was imbedded in the definition of “foreign official” and how in 1988 Congress created the stand-alone facilitating payment exception.

As to the evidence at trial, the motion stated as follows. “Here the evidence introduced by the prosecution is only consistent with a finding that the purpose of the alleged intended payments was to facilitate or expedite the release of an aircraft. The Defendant had been told by an undercover government informant that there was no legal holds upon the aircraft. He was led to believe that neither the Dominican Republic nor any other government held any legal claim to or right in the aircraft. He understood that it was simply a straightforward matter of expediting the release of an aircraft on behalf of the owner. Any intended payment was simply for the purpose of hurrying along a bureaucratic process. The purpose of the alleged intended payment was to expedite a routine governmental action. Consequently, no reasonable jury could conclude that the Defendant agreed upon an illegal objective.”

Elsewhere, the motion stated as follows. “The facts simply show that the army of the Dominican Republic had no discretion in the matter of the release of the aircraft, and that some government officials were simply trying to line their pockets outside of their official capacities.” Further the motion stated as follows. “There was no decision-making process in this case, the facts merely demonstrate a ministerial or clerical matter involving the processing of government papers and the automatic release of the aircraft.”

On April 17, 1990, U.S. District Court Judge Jame Kehoe granted a judgment of acquittal (see here).

Original source media accounts note that Judge Kehoe said “the government failed to prove the charges against [Duran] were a crime under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” According to media reports, Judge Kehoe refused a government request to stay acquittal while prosecutors appealed. Duran is reported as stating, “I feel that I have been throughly vindicated. I was ready to take the stand in my own defense. I am very happy.”

An additional dynamic in the case was that Pou fled the U.S. and Judge Kehoe agreed with the defense that all evidence concerning Pou should be excluded from the case.

According to media reports, the case began when the Government used an informant to pose as an agent for the owner of a drug plane seized by the Dominican military. Media reports suggest that the government was investigating Gurin in light of allegations he had bribed high-ranking military officials in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries to recover drug planes.