Since the launch of the FCPA Pilot Program in April 2016, the Justice Department has laid out the key guideposts for securing a declination to prosecute FCPA violations. Those guideposts include self-disclosure, cooperation with the government, disgorgement of illegally gained profits, and a genuine effort to remediate the internal conditions that led to the initial violation.
In the first half of 2017, only two FCPA violations have concluded, but both were declinations that deepen the precedent for declinations as outlines by the FCPA Pilot Program—especially considering that in each case, the companies involved had clearly violated the FCPA for years with prolonged bribery and corruption schemes. To have obtained a declination is a superior result for both companies. For compliance officers looking to the FCPA Pilot Program as a way to better understand how to manage the fallout from an FCPA violation, these two cases provide some valuable background worthy of sharing with internal counsel, chief risk officers, the rest of the C-Suite, and the board. Let’s take a closer look at each case, its background, and the factors that resulted in each company securing a declination.
