Alstom Executive's Motion to Dismiss Indictment Rejected

Alstom SA France

On December 29, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut denied a motion to dismiss the indictment brought by Lawrence Hoskins, a former employee of Alstom S.A., the French power and transportation company that recently pleaded guilty to a massive scheme to violate the FCPA and agreed to a record $772 million criminal fine.  Hoskins was charged in connection with activities involving a Connecticut-based Alstom subsidiary, Alstom Power, Inc.  Alstom Power entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement as part of the broader Alstom settlement. Hoskins offered several arguments to dismiss the indictment, including that he had left Alstom (and therefore withdrawn from any conspiracy) outside the statute of limitations, that he was not actually an agent of Alstom Power and that the FCPA cannot be applied to purely extraterritorial conduct.  With regard to the withdrawal claim, the court noted that the defendant bears the burden of proving some type of affirmative act of disavowal, not just a mere cessation of activity.  Because the indictment did not contain facts establishing the defense and the government had not made a full proffer of its evidence, the court held that it could not determine pretrial whether the defendant had in fact withdrawn from the conspiracy.  The court also held that a trial was required to resolve Hoskins's claim that he was not an agent of Alstom Power, noting that "the existence of an agency relationship is a highly factual inquiry" dependent on a number of factors.  Lastly, while Hoskins claimed that the FCPA could not apply to him because he engaged in no conduct in the United States, the indictment alleged "that he used domestic wire transfers to promote the conspiracy."