Anti-Bribery

Agilent Technologies announced this week that the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission have decided not to file any charges against it in connection with a previously disclosed investigation into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.   As Compliance Week previously reported, Agilent disclosed in a Form 10-Q last year that […]

Eleven years after agreeing to join a United Nations push against corruption, Germany is moving forward with ratifying the measure and ending its claim as one of the last major economies to do so. Germany’s Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, last week approved legislation to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). Now […]

The federal government continues to thump its chest over the number of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions it has brought worldwide, according to a recent White House fact sheet, describing its global anti-corruption accomplishments, to date. Pursuing corrupt actors and retrieving the proceeds of corruption hidden in the U.S. financial system continue to be a […]

Global resources company BHP Billiton disclosed in an annual report this week that it’s discussing a possible resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve an investigation of potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In its 2014 annual report, BHP Billiton said the issues “relate primarily to matters in connection with previously […]

General Cable disclosed this week in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has launched an internal investigation into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act concerning potential improper payments made in Angola, Portugal, Thailand, and India. In a Form 8-K, dated Sept. 22, the maker of copper, aluminum, and […]

Regulators in charge of enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act appear to be taking a more targeting approach to pursuing violators, turning in their proverbial shotguns for rifles. Enforcement actions for violations of the FCPA are still on the rise, but companies will be relieved to hear that broad-based industry “sweeps” appear to be less […]

Often the best guidance on how to avoid Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges comes from the details of cases that government authorities chose not to pursue. Companies looking to improve their FCPA compliance programs got two such cases recently. Together, the cases speak volumes about how to get a declination from the Department of Justice. […]

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline announced today that a Chinese court found GSK’s China subsidiary guilty of bribery, and fined the company a record $489 million—the largest corporate penalty the country has ever imposed. On Sept. 19, the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Hunan Province found GSK China Investment (GSK China) guilty of bribing non-government personnel […]

In what’s being called a brazen violation of anti-bribery laws, the Russian subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard last week pleaded guilty to felony violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a bribery scheme to win a lucrative technology contract with the Russian Office of the Prosecutor General, according to a press release […]