PUBLISHED ON: October 11, 2016
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Also published in Advisen Front Page News on January 16, 2017
You are General Counsel of a global manufacturing company and sit down at your desk one morning to find that your company has received letters from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. A whistleblower alerted the agencies that improper payments had been made to foreign officials by employees of your company’s foreign subsidiary. The agencies are conducting an investigation into whether these payments violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and federal securities laws. The agencies want your company to enter into a tolling agreement and voluntarily produce documents as part of the investigation. They also want to interview various directors and officers of your company.
The steps you take next could save your company and its shareholders millions of dollars by positioning your company to recover insurance proceeds for the costs of responding to the government’s inquiries and the follow-on civil litigation that may ensue once news of the FCPA investigation is made public.