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  • FinCEN grants permanent relief from Beneficial Ownership Rule for CDs and certain automatic renewal products

    Financial Crimes

    On September 7, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a notice granting permanent relief for financial institutions from the Beneficial Ownership Rule’s requirements to obtain and verify the identity of beneficial owners of legal entity customers, with respect to certificate of deposit rollovers (CDs) and loans that renew automatically. The exception applies only to the rollover, renewal, modification, or extension of the following types of accounts occurring on or after May 11, 2018: CDs; existing loans, commercial lines of credit, and credit card accounts that do not require underwriting reviews; and safe deposit box rental renewals. The exception does not apply to the initial opening of these types of new accounts. FinCEN noted that it will not provide any other exception from a financial institution's anti-money laundering compliance obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act.

    Visit here for continuing InfoBytes coverage on beneficial ownership and customer due diligence requirements here.

    Financial Crimes FinCEN CDD Rule Beneficial Ownership

  • OFAC adds Syrians to Specially Designated Nationals List

    Financial Crimes

    On September 6, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added five entities and four individuals to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List for facilitating financial transactions and shipments of fuel and weapons in support of the Syrian government’s regime. The new sanctions, issued pursuant to Executive Order 13582, generally prohibit transactions by U.S. persons with those listed, and all assets belonging to the designated persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and must be reported to OFAC.

    Visit here for continuing InfoBytes coverage on Syrian sanctions.

    Financial Crimes OFAC Department of Treasury Syria Sanctions

  • Real estate broker and nephew of former UN Secretary-General sentenced for trying to bribe a foreign official

    Financial Crimes

    On September 6, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York reportedly sentenced a real estate broker to six months in prison for trying to pay $2.5 million in bribes to a Qatari official in connection with a sale of a high rise building complex in Vietnam. The New York Times reported that Judge Ramos stated that he believed the broker deserved a lenient sentence. Law360 reported that Judge Ramos cited, among other factors, the consequences of a longer sentence on the broker’s immigration status. The sentence was ultimately far below what the government had requested.

    As FCPA Scorecard previously reported, the broker pleaded guilty in January 2018 to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and one count of violating the FCPA. He is a nephew of a former UN Secretary-General.

    Additionally, on September 6, the SEC announced that the broker had agreed to pay $225,000 in disgorgement to settle civil FCPA violations arising from his conduct. The SEC’s order concluded that he violated the anti-bribery and books and records provisions of the FCPA.

    See previous FCPA Scorecard coverage here.

    Financial Crimes FCPA Bribery

  • Netherlands-based financial services company settles Netherlands corrupt practices case and receives SEC declination

    Financial Crimes

    On September 4, a Netherlands-based financial services company announced in its Form 6-K filing that it had agreed to pay a penalty of $782 million and disgorgement of $115 million to resolve corruption charges by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (“DPPS”). The DPPS charges related to the company’s prevention of money laundering, client on-boarding, and corrupt practices. The company acknowledged its “serious shortcomings in the execution of customer due diligence policies to prevent financial economic crime” and “regrets that these shortcomings enabled customers to misuse accounts.”

    On September 5, following the settlement with the DPPS, the company announced in a new Form 6-K filing that it received a formal notification from the SEC that it had concluded its own FCPA investigation and did not intend to recommend an enforcement action. The company first disclosed the SEC investigation in March 2017. The response from the SEC is consistent with the new policy against so-called piling on issued by DOJ in May 2018. The policy is intended to encourage coordination among enforcement authorities to avoid duplicative penalties. See previous FCPA Scorecard coverage here.

    Financial Crimes SEC FCPA

  • London-based offshore drilling company receives double declination in FCPA investigation

    Financial Crimes

    On September 4, a London-based offshore drilling company, announced in its Form 8-K filing that the DOJ and the SEC will not take action against the company, ending their investigations into alleged corruption related to a drilling services agreement between an acquired subsidiary, and a Brazilian state-owned oil company. According to the filing, the SEC letter stated that the agency “did not intend to recommend any enforcement action” related to the alleged irregularities. The DOJ letter acknowledged the company’s full cooperation in the investigation.

    Financial Crimes SEC DOJ

  • French pharmaceutical company settles FCPA action with SEC for $25.2 million

    Financial Crimes

    On September 4, the SEC announced that a French pharmaceutical company had agreed to pay $25.2 million to settle FCPA charges related to payments made by company employees to healthcare professionals in Kazakhstan and the Middle East. According to the SEC’s order, from 2011 to 2015, employees of the company’s subsidiaries acted to provide things of value to foreign officials and healthcare professions “in order to improperly influence them and increase sales of [the company's] products.” Employees generated the funds for the illicit payments by submitting fake reimbursement claims for, among other things, travel and entertainment expenses, product samples, and clinical trial and consulting fees.

    The SEC found that the company violated the internal accounting controls and recordkeeping provisions of the FCPA. The company agreed to pay a civil penalty of $5 million, $17.5 million in disgorgement, and $2.7 million in prejudgment interest, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings. According to the press release, the chief of the SEC’s FCPA Unit, Charles Cain, called out bribery in the pharmaceutical industry as a continued significant problem.

    The company announced in March 2018 that the DOJ had closed its FCPA investigation without bringing an enforcement action. See previous FCPA Scorecard coverage here and here.

    Financial Crimes FCPA SEC

  • OFAC adds North Koreans to Specially Designated Nationals List

    Financial Crimes

    On September 6, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) made additions to the Specially Designated Nationals List pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13722. OFAC’s additions to the designations identify one individual and one entity found to have “engaged in significant activities undermining cybersecurity through the use of computer networks or systems against targets outside of North Korea” on behalf of the Government of North Korea. OFAC cites to the individual’s participation in a 2016 cyber-enabled fraudulent transfer of $81 million, a 2017 ransomware attack, and the 2014 cyber-attack against a U.S. entertainment company. As a result, all assets belonging to the identified individual and entity subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and must be reported to OFAC, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

    See here for previous InfoBytes coverage on North Korean sanctions.

    Financial Crimes OFAC Department of Treasury International North Korea Sanctions Executive Order

  • 2nd Circuit rules that FCPA does not reach foreign individuals without their own ties to U.S.

    Financial Crimes

    On August 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government’s argument for a broad interpretation of personal jurisdiction in FCPA cases, ruling that a non-resident foreign national lacking sufficient ties to a U.S. entity cannot be charged with conspiracy to violate the FCPA or with aiding and abetting an FCPA violation. The three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s finding that a British national and former French multinational rail transportation company executive (defendant-appellee), could not be charged with conspiring or aiding and abetting something he could not be directly charged with because he was “not an agent, employee, officer, director or shareholder of an American issuer or domestic concern” within the scope of the FCPA’s jurisdictional provision and had not himself taken actions inside the U.S. 

    The defendant-appellee was an employee of the French company’s UK subsidiary and worked for a French subsidiary. The government alleged that he was “one of the people responsible for approving the selection of, and authorizing payments to,” consultants used by the French company’s U.S. subsidiary to bribe Indonesian officials related to a power contract. The government alleged numerous U.S. acts in furtherance of the bribery (including e-mails and calls by the defendant-appellee to the U.S.), although the defendant-appellee himself never traveled to the U.S. during the scheme. The defendant-appellee was one of four executives charged in 2013 in connection with the bribes; the other three executives—all of whom worked for the U.S.-based subsidiary—a power generation equipment manufacturer (which entered into a deferred prosecution agreement)—entered guilty pleas. The company pleaded guilty in December 2014 and paid a fine of $772 million.

    The charges against the defendant-appellee included a FCPA conspiracy count as well as substantive FCPA bribery violations and related money laundering charges. The District Court granted the defendant-appellee’s motion to dismiss part of the conspiracy count, ruling that if he was not alleged in that count to be a covered person under the FCPA, then the government could not impose accomplice liability either. Similarly, where the government had not alleged that the defendant-appellee ever traveled to the U.S. during the bribery scheme, then he could not be accused of conspiring to violate the provision proscribing acts by foreign nationals taken within the U.S. The District Court allowed the count to move forward where it separately alleged that the defendant-appellee was also an agent of the U.S. subsidiary, which would bring him within the FCPA’s defined reach.

    The 2nd Circuit agreed with the District Court that if the defendant-appellee was not an agent of the French company’s U.S. subsidiary (something the court assumed for the purpose of the appeal only), and therefore himself covered under the FCPA, then he could not be charged with conspiracy or complicity liability. The court relied primarily on the idea that Congress enacted an “affirmative legislative policy” in the FCPA that was intended to punish some categories of defendants, taking into account considerations of extraterritoriality, while intentionally omitting others. Secondarily, the court also held that there was no “‘clearly expressed congressional intent to’ allow conspiracy and complicity liability to broaden the extraterritorial reach of the statute.” The court summed up its ruling as requiring that the government demonstrate that the defendant-appellee “falls within [a category enumerated in the FCPA] or acted illegally on American soil.”

    The court did reverse the District Court’s second ruling that unless the defendant-appellee traveled to the U.S. during the bribery scheme, he could not be charged with conspiring to violate the FCPA provision covering acts by foreign nationals within the U.S. The government had indicated that it still intended, at trial on the other counts, to prove that he was an agent of the U.S. subsidiary, thereby bringing him back within the categories explicitly covered by the FCPA. (The substantive FCPA counts remaining did allege that the defendant-appellee was acting as an agent).

    See previous FCPA Scorecard coverage here, here, and here.

    Financial Crimes DOJ International Bribery FCPA

  • SEC issues administrative order against U.S.-based global investment management firm

    Financial Crimes

    On August 27, the SEC issued an administrative order settling allegations against a U.S.-based investment management firm, which remained outstanding after the company’s June 4 NPA with the DOJ. The June 4 NPA resolved claims of FCPA violations in Libya and included a criminal penalty of $32.6 million and disgorgement of $31.6 million (see prior FCPA Scorecard coverage here). The SEC order stated that the company’s actions were in violation of the internal accounting controls provision of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The SEC settlement did not include a separate penalty beyond the disgorgement already agreed to in June, and pre-judgment interest. 

    Financial Crimes FCPA DOJ Disgorgement SEC

  • Barbadian insurance company receives first declination with disgorgement under FCPA corporate enforcement policy

    Financial Crimes

    On August 23, a Barbadian insurance company received the first declination with disgorgement from the DOJ under the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, which was made effective in November 2017. The conduct at issue involved payments made by the company to a Barbadian official in exchange for insurance contracts. The DOJ stated that the official, who is a U.S. legal permanent resident, laundered the payments through a New York-based company owned by a friend of the official. The declination was offered in consideration of numerous factors, including the company’s timely and voluntary disclosure of the conduct, its thorough internal investigation and cooperation with the DOJ’s investigation, its agreement to disgorge $93,900 in profits, and its efforts to enhance compliance and to remediate the matter by terminating all involved in the misconduct.

    Financial Crimes DOJ Bribery FCPA Disgorgement

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