Reported by: Gibson Dunn

U.S. anti-corruption enforcement has continued apace through the first eight months of 2022.  Although some will point to declining numbers of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) enforcement actions in 2022 to date, particularly against corporations, as compared to the heights of recent years.

This update from Gibson Dunn provides an overview of FCPA domestic and international anti-corruption enforcement, litigation, and policy developments from the first eight months of 2022.

• Tenaris S.A. – Most recently, on June 2, 2022, Luxemburg-based global steel pipe supplier Tenaris, an ADR-issuer, consented to the entry of an administrative cease-and-desist order by the SEC to resolve FCPA bribery, books and records, and internal controls charges.  According to the SEC’s Order, between 2008 and 2013, agents and employees of Tenaris’s Brazilian subsidiary paid approximately $10.4 million in bribes to a high-ranking procurement manager at Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company Petróleo Brasileiro S.A.

• Glencore International A.G. – Undoubtedly the bombshell FCPA enforcement matter of 2022-to-date came on May 24, when Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company Glencore resolved criminal FCPA bribery charges in seven African and Latin American countries.  Simultaneously, Glencore entered into a parallel criminal and civil market manipulation resolution with a different unit of DOJ’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) founded, in part, on the same conduct.

• Stericycle, Inc. – The only dual FCPA enforcement action to date in 2022 came on April 20, when Illinois-based waste management company Stericycle resolved FCPA bribery and accounting charges with DOJ and the SEC arising from allegations of corruption in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The charging documents collectively allege that, between 2011 and 2016, Stericycle representatives paid approximately $10.5 million in bribes to government officials.

• Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Holdings Ltd. – On March 18, 2022, DOJ announced its first “declination with disgorgement” FCPA resolution in nearly two years, with UK insurance company JLT Group. DOJ’s declination letter asserted that it had found evidence that JLT Group, through an employee and its agents, paid approximately $3.15 million in alleged bribes to Ecuadorian officials between 2014 and 2016, through an intermediary based in Florida.

• KT Corporation – First in but last up, the initial FCPA corporate enforcement action of 2022 came on February 17, when Korea’s largest telecommunications operator and ADS issuer KT Corporation resolved FCPA books-and-records and internal controls charges with the SEC. According to the administrative cease and desist order, KT Corporation maintained multiple “slush funds” between 2009 and 2017, from which it made illegal contributionsm to legislative officials in Korea.

Read full report: https://www.gibsondunn.com/2022-mid-year-fcpa-update/