NACDL's 6th Annual Defending the White Collar Case Seminar – “Passport, Please: Defending in an International Enforcement Climate,” Friday, October 1, 2010

Guest Blogger: Ellen C. Brotman, Partner, White Collar Crime & Government Investigations Department, Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads (Philadelphia, PA)

Moderator: Abbe David Lowell

Panelists: Peter Binning, Charles E. Duross, Linda Friedman Ramirez, Mark F. Mendelsohn, Barry J. Pollack and David Schertler

It’s a small world after all and the last panel of the conference: “Passport, Please: Defending in an International Enforcement Climate” demonstrated the complexity of defending multi-national corporations and their officers in the new global business environment.  There were a lot of familiar themes with some unfamiliar twists and they were all revealed through the discussion of the hypo, summarized here:

Zurich Auto is a Swiss company that produces parts for customization of high-end automobiles.  It is headquartered in Zurich with an office in Amaz, the capital city of a very wealthy oil-producing country called Petrastan.  For its sales in Petrastan until 2008, the officials in the Petrastan Transportation Ministry added a 10% fee to Zurich’s invoices and then collected that fee from a separate bank account, set up with the help of Zurich Auto’s agent in Amaz, Barack Peres.  Barack has his own company, Barack Supplies, established in the Emirates of Tamir (E.T.) where Peres is a citizen.  He is also a dual citizen of France.  Peres made all the arrangements for the 10% fee being paid and was paid bonuses by Zurich Auto based on total sales he was able to arrange in this system.  In addition, Peres had some side arrangement with Petrastan officials where they exchanged gifts from time to time (e.g., vacation, jewelry, dinners, spending money).  Swiss law and French law make it illegal for anyone to pay a bribe or inducement to a public official in exchange for any official action and Swiss law requires Swiss companies to report accurately to Swiss tax and other authorities the revenue and expenses it collects and pays.  Zurich Auto never reported the additional 10% as income.

In 2007, the U.S. company U.S. Motors, a vehicle manufacturing company, acquired Zurich Auto.   As soon as U.S. Auto became aware of the 10% program in 2008, it stopped making such payments but, at the direction of its CFO Thomas Turner, it never reported on any of its S.E.C. or other filings either the payments that had been made by its now subsidiary before or after the acquisition.   In 2010, a Wall Street Journal articles revealed the long-standing 10% fee program that had been occurring on all products sold in Petrastan and mentioned Zurich Auto as one of two dozen companies involved.

The panel’s moderator, Abbe Lowell, acted as GC of U.S. Motors and reviewed with the panel the various issues that can come up, including: When do you go to the government and tell them you are aware of the problem? What do you tell them you’re doing about it? What is the scope of your document preservation letter, and who sends it? Do you conduct an internal investigation and do you include in house counsel? How does the issue of successor liability enter into your analysis? How do you account for the possibility of a whistleblower to the SEC? When do you have to make a decision about issuing a new SEC filing relating to material risk?

As is often the case here at the White Collar Conference, we had a representative from the Justice Department on the panel who emphasized that publicity about an FCPA problem of this nature would surely capture their attention and necessitate a phone call to the company if they hadn’t heard from them by Monday morning.  An interesting point made here was that any delay in contact would create a suspicion of the possibility of obstruction.

After a discussion of the corporate exposure, we turned to the issues facing the individuals: the seller of the company, the CFO of U.S. Autos and the agent in the foreign country.  This discussion raised the following issues:  Is the seller of the company still on the hook? And is he better off dealing with law enforcement authorities, in Switzerland or the U.S.?  We also turned to the ubiquitous question of who’s paying the individual’s bills because, of course, these individuals have exposure and need separate counsel.  This part of the discussion raised some familiar questions about joint defense agreements and advancement of fees, and whether outside counsel still have concerns that these arrangements won’t be perceived well by DOJ and may not be in the company’s best interests.  The DOJ representative denied that these factors would be taken into account, but it seemed to me that other panelists did not feel as sure.

The discussion then turned to some of  the specific issues created by the multi-national nature of the company and the investigation, including: Will the Swiss company and US Auto work together in gathering evidence? Is there a greater ability to protect documents in Europe, and can that be used to an American company’s advantage? An interesting comparison of punitive consequences was also briefly discussed.

The last topic that was discussed was the representation of foreign individuals, and whether and how to negotiate the service of any period of incarceration in their home countries.  The panel agreed that prisoner transfer issues can sometimes be worked out ahead of time, but it can’t happen until one’s client is in BOP custody.  At DOJ, the Office of Enforcement Operations is in charge of prisoner transfer operations, but an attendee noted that, as in many other situations, the agreement of the line assistant to these arrangements is critical.

This closes out another great NACDL conference on white collar issues.  To purchase the audio recording of this program, click here.  For more information, visit NACDL's White Collar page here.  

(ecb)