DOJ has expanded its efforts to give more concrete guidance to companies facing FCPA risk to M&A transactions and the question of successor liability. In a speech on July 25, 2018, at the American Conference Institute’s 9th Global Forum on Anti-Corruption Compliance in High Risk Markets, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Matthew S. Miner highlighted DOJ’s views on successor liability for FCPA violations by acquired companies.[1] Miner sought to clarify DOJ’s policy regarding the voluntary disclosure of misconduct by successor companies and to highlight the benefits of such disclosure as spelled out in the joint DOJ and SEC FCPA Resource Guide (the “Resource Guide”).[2] In general, as with other recent pronouncements and actions by DOJ, such as the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy,[3] Miner’s speech seemed intended to highlight ways in which firms can gain cooperation credit (up to and including a declination) in FCPA investigations.
Continue Reading DOJ Remarks Provide Guidance on Addressing FCPA Risk in M&A Transactions
Jury Awards Ousted General Counsel Nearly $11 Million in Whistleblower Retaliation Action – Key Takeaways
Earlier this month, following three hours of deliberation, a California federal jury found that Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. had violated the federal whistleblower provisions by unlawfully firing Sanford Wadler, its former general counsel, and awarded Wadler nearly $11 million in damages. Wadler had sued his former company under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd-Frank Act and California state law, asserting that he was wrongfully terminated in retaliation for investigating and reporting to senior management potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) in China. The pre-trial proceedings and three-week trial involved several whistleblower-friendly rulings that promise to generate additional litigation. Those legal determinations, as well as the jury’s prompt finding of liability and imposition of a substantial award in the face of an aggressive corporate defense, bring to the forefront significant issues relevant to public companies, directors and other corporate stakeholders – not the least of which is the precedent of a general counsel in the role of whistleblower.
Continue Reading Jury Awards Ousted General Counsel Nearly $11 Million in Whistleblower Retaliation Action – Key Takeaways
Supreme Court Clarifies Insider Trading Liability for Confidential Tips
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision this week in Salman v. United States, No. 15-268, 580 U.S. __ (Dec. 6, 2016), clarified what constitutes a “personal benefit” for purposes of insider trading liability. In its first merits ruling in an insider trading case in two decades, the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s holding that the personal benefit requirement may be met when an inside tipper simply gifts confidential information to a trading relative or friend. In so holding, the Supreme Court significantly narrowed a key aspect of the Second Circuit’s landmark insider trading decision in United States v. Newman, which had required prosecutors to prove that the tipper received something “of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature”—a more difficult standard to meet.
Before Newman was decided, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had prioritized insider trading prosecutions, obtaining dozens of convictions and over a billion dollars in fines since 2009. After Newman, however, prosecutors were forced to dismiss several indictments, and some commentators wondered what the future held for insider trading prosecutions. The Supreme Court’s recent decision should reduce that uncertainty and may bring a renewed focus on insider trading investigations.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Clarifies Insider Trading Liability for Confidential Tips