InfoBytes Blog
Court overturns foreign bribery conviction of former transportation and energy industry executive
On February 26, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut acquitted a British national and former executive of a French multinational transportation and energy company who had been convicted by a jury of FCPA violations, citing the government’s failure to prove at trial that the defendant was an “agent” of a domestic concern. The court left intact the jury’s money laundering verdicts against the defendant.
At trial in November 2019, the jury found the defendant guilty of one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, and six counts of substantive FCPA violations, as well as several money laundering counts, for his alleged involvement in a scheme by the company’s U.S. subsidiary, a power generation equipment manufacturer, to bribe Indonesian officials to obtain a power plant construction contract. The defendant filed a Rule 29(a) motion for a judgment of acquittal on all of the counts, arguing as to the FCPA counts that the government “failed to prove that he was an agent of [the subsidiary], the relevant domestic concern,” as required pursuant to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s earlier decision in the matter (covered by InfoBytes here). The trial court agreed, ruling that the evidence adduced at trial did not established that the subsidiary exercised “control over [the defendant’s] actions sufficient to demonstrate agency.” The court also granted the defendant’s in-the-alternative request for a new trial on the FCPA counts, in the event that court’s acquittal is later disturbed on appeal.