Tenaris, S.A., a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Luxembourg with operations in 12 countries through 17 subsidiaries, today entered into separate agreements with the SEC Division of Enforcement and the DOJ’s Criminal Division for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although it must have been a bitter pill to swallow (totaling $9.9 million in disgorgement and criminal penalties), the company has agreed to provide full cooperation to the U.S. government in exchange for no criminal or civil sanctions. From the attorney’s perspective, this case highlights the enormous tool-kit available to federal prosecutors across agencies, and the challenges facing companies who must negotiate with each of them in order to achieve the finality of a global settlement. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich convicted of just one of 24 counts
A Northern District of Illinois federal jury, after fourteen days of deliberations, reached a decision on only one of twenty four counts brought against former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The jury found Blagojevich guilty of count 24 which alleged that Blagojevich violated 18 U.S.C. §1001(a)(2) by telling the FBI on March 16, 2005 that: (i) he tried to maintain a firewall between politics and government; and (ii) he did not track, or want to know, who contributed to him or how much they were contributing to him. (more…)
Internal Investigations: Branded a Corporate Criminal
Caught in the storm of a corporate internal investigation, many executives never stop to consider how being indicted would impact themselves, their families, their finances and their hard-earned reputations. One potential consequence of an internal investigation is that the corporation will provide the government with the investigation’s findings or that the corporation will enter into a plea agreement with the government that may leave executives out in the cold. Consider the recent article “Executives find reputations don’t return after criminal charges dropped” from Bloomberg News and the “You Are Closer to Being Indicted Than You Think… ” article in the Construction Financial Management Association magazine describing the wrenching experiences of executives who were indicted but had charges dismissed pre-trial or were acquitted at trial. (more…)
US v. Siegelman and Scrushy
On Tuesday, June 29, 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the government corruption convictions against former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. The Court ordered the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the matters in light of the ruling in Skilling v. United States, 561 US ___ (2010), the case of former Enron chief Jeffrey Skilling.
In the Skilling case (reported in our blog), the Supreme Court interpreted the honest services fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1346, which prohibits “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” The Supreme Court limited the scope of the honest services fraud statute so that it covers only bribes and kickback schemes. In other words, the Supreme Court limited the scope of prosecutions under the honest service fraud statute to those cases where prosecutors put forward evidence that defendants accepted bribes or kickbacks. (more…)
TAGS: Bribery, Corruption, Internal Investigations