U.S. regulators increasingly are collaborating with foreign governments to fight bribery and corruption on a global scale, dramatically advancing the Department of Justice’s efforts to uncover and prosecute violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Leslie Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, drove this point home in recent remarks at the American Conference Institute’s International Conference on the FCPA. “Every day, more countries join in the battle against transnational bribery—and this includes not just our long-time partners, but countries in all corners of the globe,” she said. “[W]here appropriate, we discuss strategy and coordinate our use of investigative techniques, so that we can obtain the best possible results.”  

In her speech, Caldwell cited Japanese trading-company Marubeni as an example. In March, Marubeni pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and agreed to pay a criminal fine of $88 million over FCPA violations in connection with bribes paid to foreign government officials in Indonesia. 

According to court filings, Marubeni and its employees participated in a seven-year scheme to pay—and conceal—bribes to high-ranking members of Parliament and Perusahaan Listrik Negara, the state-owned and state-controlled electricity company in Indonesia, in exchange for securing a $118 million contract, known as the Tarahan project, to provide power-related services in the country. Marubeni then retained two consultants for the purpose of paying bribes to Indonesian officials.

In addition to Indonesia, the bribery scheme spanned several other countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, and France. “Because of our cooperative relationships with our law enforcement partners in these countries, we were able to share vital information and evidence among countries and access individuals located overseas,” Caldwell said. “This coordination enabled us to counter to this intercontinental bribery scheme with an authoritative international response.”

“[T]he fight against international bribery has been, and continues to be, a core priority of the Department of Justice,” Caldwell warned.

Self-Disclosure

During her remarks, Caldwell also told the audience that the Justice Department continues to develop cases on its own, whether or not companies choose to self-disclose wrongdoing. “While we, of course, still welcome self-disclosure, today we are far from reliant on it,” she said.

Caldwell further reminded companies about the importance of conducting thorough internal investigations. “We do not expect you to boil the ocean in conducting your investigation but in order to receive full credit for cooperation, we do expect you to conduct a thorough, appropriately tailored investigation of the misconduct,” she said.  

Additionally, the Justice Department expects companies to provide useful facts in a timely manner, including facts about culpable individuals. “The sooner you disclose the conduct to us, the more avenues we have to investigate culpable individuals—and, the more open you are with us about the facts you learned about that conduct during your investigation, the more credit you will receive for cooperation,” Caldwell said.

Companies likely will not receive cooperation credit in situations where they delay notifying the agency or attempt to whitewash the facts about an individual’s involvement. Cooperation means “we will expect to hear not just what happened, but who did what, when, and where,” Caldwell said.

Cooperation also means that companies will be expected to provide relevant documents in a timely fashion, even if those documents are located overseas. “We recognize that some countries’ laws pose real challenges to data access and transfer of information, but we also know that many do not,” she said.

The Criminal Division will not give full cooperation credit to companies that hide behind foreign data privacy laws instead of providing overseas documents when they can, Caldwell said. “Foreign data privacy laws exist to protect individual privacy, not to shield companies that purport to be cooperating in criminal investigations.”

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