Non-Public Issuer Discloses Investigation

In what may be the first case of its kind, a U.S. company that has no securities traded on an exchange but files periodic reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission has disclosed an internal investigation into possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations.

In a December 30, 2009 SEC filing (here), Tampa-based PBSJ Corporation said it will miss the filing deadline for its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2009 "due to an internal investigation being conducted by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors." The company said the purpose of the internal investigation "is to determine whether any laws have been violated, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, in connection with certain projects undertaken by PBS&J International, Inc., one of the Company’s subsidiaries, in certain foreign countries."

The FCPA's antibribery provisions apply to "domestic concerns," which include all U.S. companies; the books and records and internal controls provisions apply only to "issuers" -- corporations that have issued securities that have been registered in the United States or who are required to file periodic reports with the SEC. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 78c(a)(8), 78dd-1(a) and our post here.

PBSJ Corporation is a "domestic concern" subject to the anti-bribery provisions. It has no publicly traded securities. But because it has so many shareholders -- about 4,000 mainly current and former employees  -- it must file periodic reports with the SEC. That makes it an "issuer" subject to the books and records and internal controls provisions.

The Company said it self-reported to the SEC and Justice Department "the circumstances surrounding this internal investigation. Should the SEC or DOJ decide to conduct its own investigation, the Company will cooperate fully."

PBSJ provides engineering and construction management for government agencies worldwide, usually for road-building projects. It has 80 offices and 3,900 employees.

The company has had other compliance problems and internal controls lapses. The Tampa Business Journal said in March 2005 PBSJ discovered "what eventually was determined to be a $36.6 million embezzlement scheme by the former CFO and two other workers. Discovery of the scheme triggered a series of events, including repayments to clients that had been overbilled in an effort to cover the missing funds and a restatement of financial information for several years."

The company was also investigated by the Federal Election Commission. The FEC said for years PBSJ hid  campaign contributions to political candidates. It also encouraged employees to contribute to campaigns, then secretly reimbursed them for their payments, which violates the law.

Kozeny Keeps Fighting

Viktor Kozeny, left, the promoter of a failed 1998 plot to take control of the Azeri state oil company during its privatization by bribing the country's leaders, has again asked a court in the Bahamas to block his extradition to the United States. The Czech-born fugitive appeared this week at a hearing to consider an appeal on behalf of U.S. authorities. They want to bring him back to face trial for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The appellate judges didn't say when they'll decide the case.

Kozeny, 46, has lived in the Bahamas for about ten years. He was arrested there at the request of the U.S. government in October 2005 and held in prison until granted bail in April 2007. Although a judge ordered his extradition, his lawyers were able to convince another judge to block it (here). The U.S. then pushed the case to the court of appeals.

Kozeny was indicted for the Azeri bribery plot by a federal grand jury in Manhattan in May 2005. His co-defendant, Frederic Bourke, was convicted in July of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and lying to FBI agents. Bourke was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Others involved in the Azeri scheme have pleaded guilty. Waiting to be sentenced are Thomas Farrell, a director of one of Kozeny's companies, Kozeny's Swiss lawyer Hans Bodmer, and Clayton Lewis, a partner in Omega Advisors, Inc., a hedge fund that invested and lost about $126 million in the Azeri privatization. Kozeny was also indicted in 2003 in a New York state criminal case for stealing $182 million from investors, including Omega, AIG, and Bourke.

Kozeny's lawyer, Clive Nicholls QC, told the appellate court this week that his client shouldn't be extradited. The lawyer said Kozeny committed no crime under Bahamas law, which doesn't reach bribery between third-country nationals. According to a report in the local Tribune (here), Nicholls also said Kozeny was "not a U.S. resident or national at the time the alleged offences were committed and therefore is not subject to the U.S. jurisdiction. He further submitted that when the alleged offences were committed, the Bahamas had not signed onto the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) anti-bribery convention and also that the alleged offences occurred before the [Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC)] came into force."

In Kozeny's indictment, the United States said he was subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because he acted as an agent for U.S.-based investors, known as "domestic concerns" in the FCPA, including Kozeny's own investment vehicle (15 U.S.C. § 78dd-2(h)(1)(A)).

Kozeny is the best-known FCPA fugitive. Bloomberg's David Glovin visited him last year in the Bahamas and wrote a great account of their meeting (here).

Tesler Fights Extradition; Jefferson Appeals

The London lawyer accused by the U.S. of being a middleman in KBR's bribery of Nigerian officials appeared in court last week to fight extradition. Jeffrey Tesler, 61, a U.K. citizen, was indicted in February by a federal grand jury in Houston. He was charged with one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and ten substantive FCPA offenses. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 55 years in prison. U.K. police, acting at the request of U.S. authorities, arrested Tesler in March.

According to a Press Association report, Tesler argued in the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court that his case is already under investigation by the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office and shouldn't be duplicated by American prosecutors.

Tesler's lawyer, Bill Clegg QC, also said Tesler's case isn't linked to the U.S. "No person who was alleged to have received a bribe was promised a bribe in the U.S.A. No money to pay any bribes originated from any U.S. bank account. Mr Tesler, who it is alleged arranged the bribes, had never visited the U.S. in relation to the alleged conspiracy." The alleged bribes, Clegg said, were handled by a Gibraltar company and paid through Swiss bank accounts.

The U.S. indictment charged Tesler with using his Gibraltar company, Tri-Star Investments, to funnel about $132 million in bribes to Nigerian officials. The payments were intended to secure contracts worth more than $6 billion to build liquefied natural gas facilities on Nigeria's Bonny Island. The DOJ said Tesler was acting for a joint venture known as TSKJ, equally owned by KBR, Technip, SA of France, Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V. (a subsidiary of Saipem SpA of Italy) and JGC of Japan.

The Crown's lawyer, David Perry QC, said U.S.-based companies were involved and money had been channelled through U.S. bank accounts. According to a report in the Guardian, Perry said the allegations against Tesler could be criminal offenses "in Britain as well as the U.S., so extradition could take place under normal legal rules."

In the indictment, the U.S. made this claim of jurisdiction:

At all times relevant to this Indictment, Tesler was an "agent" of an "issuer" within the meaning of the FCPA, Title 15, United States Code, Section 78dd- 1, an "agent" of a "domestic concern" within the meaning of the FCPA, Title 15, United States Code, Section 78dd-2, and an "agent" of a "person" within the meaning of the FCPA, Title 15, United States Code, Section 78dd-3.

The London court continued Tesler's extradiction hearing.

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Down But Not Out. Former congressman William Jefferson, sentenced last month to 13 years in prison for corruption and conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, managed to file his notice of appeal on time. It was touch-and-go after Jefferson, 62, filed for bankruptcy in August, saying he owes his criminal defense lawyers more than $5.7 million. But two of the lawyers are sticking with him.

The Times Picayune reported that attorneys Robert Trout and Amy Jackson received approval last week from the trial judge, T.S. Ellis III, for the court to pay Jefferson's legal fees for the appeal. The lawyers won't get their full rates but a lower amount equivalent to court-appointed public defenders. Ellis also approved their request for the court to pay for a transcript of the six-week trial, probably about $26,000.

Jefferson is free on bail pending his appeal. It's expected to take at least a year. Judge Ellis said he released Jefferson because his defense raised an argument that's untested in the appellate courts. Jefferson says he was acting as a private citizen, while a corruption statute he was convicted under applies only to public acts by elected officials. The judge also said he regretted not making the jury's verdict form more specific. (See our post here.)

Jefferson was convicted on 11 charges -- conspiracy, soliciting and taking bribes, depriving citizens of honest services, money laundering and racketeering. He was acquitted of five charges, including Count 11 of the indictment -- the only substantive FCPA charge he faced.

The Statecraft Of Enforcement

Should the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act be used to punish nations that don't behave the way the United States wants them to? Michael Jacobson (left) from the Washington Institute thinks so. In the September 24 issue of Policy Watch, he proposes targeted enforcement of the FCPA against non-U.S. companies that do business with Iran (U.S. companies aren't allowed there under current law). The purpose is to sanction the country and its leaders on the nuclear issue.

Jacobson's thinking goes like this: Tehran deserves punishment. The U.N. can't do it because China and Russia won't get behind effective sanctions. But the FCPA reaches all foreign companies that have securities registered in the U.S. Some of those foreign companies are doing business with Iran. That country's leaders are corrupt and most deals they do probably violate the FCPA's anti-bribery provisions. Therefore, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission should target FCPA enforcement against foreign companies doing business with the regime. That will discourage trade with Iran and ultimately inflict real damage on the leadership there. While unilateral U.S. action will work, Jacobson says, the best scenario is for other OECD countries to adopt the same approach under their respective anti-corruption laws.

Is this a serious idea?

Well, the Washington Institute where Michael Jacobson works is a serious think tank. On its board of advisers are five former Secretaries of State -- Warren Christopher, Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. Among the other board members are Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the New Republic, Richard Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, and Mort Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report. That's a lot of horsepower.

Jacobson's bio says he specializes in counterterrorism and intelligence -- particularly "sanctions and financial measures to combat national security threats." Before joining the Washington Institute, he was a senior advisor in the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and counsel on the 9-11 Commission. He also worked for the FBI, first as an intelligence analyst, then as assistant general counsel. He holds "a bachelor's degree in psychology from Brandeis University, a master's degree in international relations from Tufts University, and a law degree from Boston College Law School."

So yes, this looks like a serious proposal. But is it a good idea?

We're against corruption and the spread of nuclear weapons. Who isn't? And we know dealing with Iran is frustrating; carrots don't work and there aren't many sticks to reach for. Still, the cost of using the FCPA as a sanction would be high, and it probably wouldn't work.

Today the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is admired around the world. Called "one of Congress's finer moments" by the Wall Street Journal, it's a hopeful statute that stands for ethics in business and government. Once politicized, however, it'll be just another symbol of heavy-handed and overreaching American diplomacy that's resented overseas. At home, injecting the DOJ and SEC so deep into U.S. foreign policy would compromise their integrity as crime-fighting agencies, with implications far beyond FCPA enforcement.

What's more, using the FCPA to sanction Iran (or any country) is likely to backfire. Targeted enforcement might keep clean money out. But as we heard from Andy Spalding earlier this year, that would open the door for investors from countries "not committed to effectively enforcing anti-bribery measures," like Russia and China, making it even easier for crooked leaders to skim funds from military and civilian projects. End result: more corruption and no less nuclear development.

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RIP William Safire. From Time magazine: "Not for Safire the clodden metaphors, arch constructions, one-sentence paragraphs and dreary wonkery that are the stock in trade of too many modern American columnists. He was of that generation of inky-fingered wretches who remembered that it is not a sin for journalism to entertain — indeed, that one way you can get across a point about which you feel passionately is to make people smile while they are absorbing it."
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The Fugitive Files, Part III

When Suleiman A. Nassar was indicted in 1994 for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he was a regional vice president of Lockheed International living near Geneva, Switzerland. His territory for Lockheed included Egypt, and in the late 1980s he landed a nice sale there -- three C-130 military cargo planes worth $79 million. But he won the business, the Justice Department said, by bribing a member of the Egyptian parliament with a million dollars. The DOJ indicted him, along with a co-worker and Lockheed itself.

Before issuing the indictment, the Justice Department spoke with Nassar, a Syrian-born, naturalized U.S. citizen. He assured prosecutors he would appear voluntarily in Atlanta, where the case would be filed. They in turn agreed not to have him arrested in Europe, which would have triggered a long extradition process. It was a gentlemanly arrangement but Nassar had other intentions. He never showed up in Atlanta and instead did his best to vanish.

He fled to his birthplace, Syria, a country with no extradition treaty or law-enforcement agreements with the U.S. Prosecutors said later they were "disappointed and frustrated" by Nassar's escape. But they didn't give up.

They tracked him to Damascus after Swiss police noticed that his wife was receiving mail from an address there. But how to get him back? As the prosecutors said, the relationship between America and Syria was, at best, "notoriously tenuous."

One thing the Justice Department could do was make his life difficult. When he sold two condos in Washington, D.C., prosecutors used the Federal Debt Collection Procedures Act ( 28 U.S.C. § 3001, et seq.) to block the international transfer of the sale proceeds. Then they used the ancient All Writs Act (28 U.S.C. § 1651)* to freeze Nassar’s worldwide assets -- including pension payments that eventually amounted to about $750,000. Prosecutors even threatened to freeze an inheritance his wife was about to receive, on the grounds that she might use the money to help her husband evade arrest.

The Syrians, meanwhile, did their part too. They arrested Nassar in late September 1994 under an Interpol warrant circulated by the U.S. They held him in jail until he made bail two months later. Once released, he stayed in Damascus -- the local police had impounded his passport -- and nothing further happened. The Americans couldn't extradite him, the Syrians wouldn't keep him locked up, and everyone assumed the case was stuck. But they were wrong.

In January 1995, Lockheed pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That generated global headlines, leading the Syrian government to take a new interest in their now-notorious FCPA fugitive. In March 1995, DOJ prosecutors were meeting with the Syrian justice minister. He chose that moment to deliver some dramatic news: Nassar had just been arrested "on charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and that under the doctrine of extraterritoriality, the Syrian Government intended to try him in Damascus." As U.S. prosecutors said later, it wasn't exactly the trial they had in mind.

But by then Nassar was exhausted and scared. The global freeze on his family's assets, two arrests, a looming Syrian criminal trial, the prospect of years in a local prison -- he'd had enough. According to the DOJ's account, in July 1995 their man was "released from Adra Prison in Syria and escorted to the Damascus Airport where he boarded a plane for Frankfurt, Germany. There he was met by Special Agent Chris Amato of the Defense Criminal Investigation Service, taken to Atlanta, and placed under arrest."

Nassar agreed to plead guilty to violating the FCPA. By prior arrangement, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $125,000, to be paid from his frozen funds before they were released. His co-worker Allen Love pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and was fined $20,000. Lockheed's guilty plea to conspiracy to violate the FCPA's antibribery provisions resulted in penalties of $24.8 million.

A final note: Suleiman A. Nassar -- who almost became the first person to be tried outside the United States for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- was the first person ever imprisoned in the U.S. for an FCPA offense.

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This post is adapted in part from an article called "The International Fugitive," by Martin J. Weinstein and Daniel A. Caldwell of the U.S. Attorneys' Office for the Northern District of Georgia. The article appeared in the USA Bulletin for December 1996, Volume 44, Number 6, which can be downloaded here.

Parts I and II of the Fugitive Files can be found here and here.

We're grateful to Cody Worthington, whose outstanding research was the basis for our series on FCPA fugitives.
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*The All Writs Act (28 U.S.C. § 1651) provides: (a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law. (b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction.
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We Get It

Lawyers are trained to quibble and criminal defense lawyers do it best. After all, their job is to create reasonable doubt. So it's no surprise that when talking about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, they say it's complicated, technically challenging and obscure, poorly drafted and badly organized. But don't believe it. There's no evidence in the record that judges or juries have any trouble understanding the FCPA. Just the opposite.

Case in point: U.S. v. Gerald and Patricia Green. Judge George Wu's final jury instructions show just how simple the FCPA's antibribery provisions really are. His words are neat, clear and concise. All that's missing is the ambiguity lawyers like to talk about. (The instructions refer to "an instrumentality of interstate commerce," a pre-1998 holdover discussed here and here.)

Seeing Judge Wu's complete FCPA instructions should help dispel the idea that the law is shrouded in mystery. It's not. That's one reason why there hasn't been an acquittal in an FCPA trial since 1991. Juries get it. Which means anyone who's completed a typical compliance training program has no excuse for not understanding the FCPA.

Here's what Judge Wu said:
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Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

One of the alleged objects of the conspiracy charged in Count One of the Indictment is a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (henceforth "FCPA"). In addition, Counts Two through Ten charge both Defendants with nine separate FCPA violations. See paragraph 26 of the Indictment for a description of each of the FCPA counts.

A FCPA violation is described in 15 U.S.C. § 78dd-2(a) as follows:

It shall be unlawful for any domestic concern . . . or for any officer, director, employee, or agent of such domestic concern . . . , to make use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of an offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of any money, or offer, gift, promise to give, or authorization of the giving of anything of value to--

(1) any foreign official [or]

* * * * * *
[(3) any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given, or promised, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official . . .]

for purposes of -

(A)(i) influencing any act or decision of such foreign official in his official capacity, (ii) inducing such foreign official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official, or (iii) securing any improper advantage; or

(B) inducing such foreign official to use his influence with a foreign government or instrumentality thereof to affect or influence any act or decision of such government or instrumentality,

in order to assist such domestic concern in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person . . .

15 U.S.C. § 78dd-2(g) (2)(A) makes it a crime for a person to "willfully violate" Section 78dd-2.

Elements Of A FCPA Violation

To establish that a Defendant violated the FCPA, the Government must prove each of the following seven elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

First, that Defendant was a "domestic concern" or an officer, director, employee or agent of a domestic concern;

Second, the Defendant made use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce;

Third, at which time the Defendant was acting "corruptly";

Fourth, when the Defendant authorized, offered to pay, or made a gift or payment of anything of value to a foreign official or to any person (knowing that all or a part of such gift or payment would be offered or given directly or indirectly to a foreign foreign official);

Fifth, for the purpose of (a) influencing any act or decision of such foreign official in his official capacity, (b) inducing such foreign official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official, or (c) securing any improper advantage;

Sixth, the gift or payment was authorized or made to assist the domestic concern in obtaining or retaining business for or with (or directing business to) any person; and

Seventh, the Defendant acted willfully.

A "domestic concern" means any individual who is a citizen or resident of the United States and / or any corporation, partnership or business entity which is organized under the laws of a State of the United States or which has its principal place of business in the United States.

A "foreign official" means any officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency or instrumentality of the foreign government; or any person acting in an official capacity or on behalf of any such foreign government, department or agency.

The term "interstate commerce" means trade, commerce, transportation or communications among the several States of this country, or between any foreign country and any State, or between any State and any location outside of that State. The term also includes the use of a telephone or other interstate means of communication or any other interstate instrumentality, such as fax transmissions, e-mail correspondence and wire transfers of funds between persons in different States or countries.

An act is "corruptly" done if done voluntarily and intentionally, and with a bad purpose or evil motive of accomplishing either an unlawful end or result, or a lawful end or result but by some unlawful method or means. The term "corruptly" in FCPA is intended to connote that the offer, payment, or promise was intended to induce the recipient to misuse his or her official position.

A violation of the FCPA is "willful" if: 1) the Defendant's actions are intentional and not the result of an accident or mistake, and 2) the Defendant knows that his or her actions are in some way unlawful. As to the second point, the Defendant does not have to be aware of the existence of the FCPA itself, but the Defendant must have proceeded with the knowledge that he or she was doing a "bad" act under the general rules of law, doing an act with a bad purpose, or taken the action without any ground to believe that it was lawful.
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Download a copy of the specific jury instructions in U.S. v. Green here.

Download a copy of the March 11, 2009 second superseding indictment in U.S. v. Green here.

View prior posts about the Greens here.
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FCPA Liability Keeps Growing

In late July, the SEC filed a settled enforcement action against Nature's Sunshine Products Inc. (NSP), its CEO Douglas Faggioli and its former CFO Craig D. Huff. The charges involved bribes by NSP's Brazilian subsidiary to customs officials and false accounting to conceal the payments. As we said here, the SEC's complaint alleged that Faggioli and Huff, in their capacities as control persons, violated the books and records and internal controls provisions of the securities laws in connection with the Brazilian bribes.

As control persons. What's that mean?

A nice explanation appears on law.com from Philip Urofsky, the editor-in-chief of the FCPA Digest. He said in an interview that NSP's officers, Faggioli and Huff, were charged individually under Section 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as those "in control" of the Brazilian employees who paid the bribes. Urofsky said it's the first time control-person liability has been used in the FCPA context. He explained:

What [the SEC charges] allege is that the current CEO, who was at the time the COO, had overall responsibility for the international operations of the company, including the export of products to Brazil. And the people who would know about these issues were under his control, and that the former CEO had authority and responsibility for the internal controls and books and records. This is a departure from the former practice. It's consistent with Section 20A as it's used in private litigation, but I've never seen the SEC use it in an FCPA case.

How significant is the appearance of control-person liability? Urofsky again:

It's an indication of the SEC's willingness to use all the tools at its disposal to hold individuals liable for acts within the corporation. Up until now, they usually would allege some knowledge, direct knowledge, and involvement of an individual. That is limiting because sometimes they don't have the evidence, don't have the last link. Also, in this case it's the CEO and CFO. But Section 20A has been used against a much wider variety of corporate officers and even directors in civil litigation. So there's potential where the directors are very active and involved in the operations of the company. In those circumstances, the SEC might very well look and see if there are facts to justify holding that person responsible.

There's a lot more in the interview on law.com here.
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Tinseltown, Bourke Again, And Margaritaville

More on the Greens. In February 2008 we said: "We're not privy to the Greens' defense, of course, but they appear to have a tough legal battle ahead of them." As their trial was about to begin this week, it was postponed. According to the AP, the Justice Department blamed the one-week delay on "the availability of a prosecution witness." Trial delays aren't unusual. But could the Greens be trying to work out a plea?

As we've said, Perry Mason's clients never ended up behind bars. But real-life FCPA defendants aren't so lucky. Most accused individuals have plea-bargained to reduce or avoid jail time -- FCPA convictions carry a prison term of up to five years. And consider this: Since 1991, not a single FCPA trial has ended with an acquittal.

The Greens -- husband-and-wife Hollywood movie-producers Gerald and Patricia -- are also charged with conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction, and filing false tax returns. He's 76, she's 54, and if convicted on some or all counts they could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Jury selection in U.S. v. Green is scheduled to start on August 25.

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About those FCPA jury instructions. Responding to this week's post, The Feds Should Take A Meeting, a reader said:

I'm not sure the Professor's criticism of the Bourke instructions on jurisdiction are well-founded. Although the statutory charging language in the conspiracy count does allege that the conspiracy continued to in or about 1999, only two of the overt acts took place after the 1998 amendments were signed into law. One was a trip to Azerbaijan in January 1999 by Farrell and the other a trip in February 1999 by Bourke. Both of these trips are described as being for the purpose of meeting with Azeri officials concerning the privatization investment, but the government did not set out any particular acts in furtherance of the bribery scheme. Moreover, in the original indictment, none of the substantive FCPA counts involved transactions after November 10, 1998. Thus, it is likely that the government chose to play it safe and had the court instruct on the pre-amendment jurisdictional element.

But the pre-1998 jurisdictional instruction wouldn't be needed in U.S. v. Green, where the alleged offending behavior took place from 2002 to 2007.

The government's proposed jury instructions in United States v. Green (United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case #: 08-59(B) - GW) can be downloaded here. The proposed "interstate commerce" instruction is number 28.

The jury instructions from United States v. Bourke, S1 05 Cr. 418 (SAS) (S. D. N. Y.) can be downloaded here.

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Turks and Caicos-shire. Last Friday, Britain suspended the territory's political institutions and imposed direct rule. A U.K. report (available here) alleged systematic corruption among Turks and Caicos' leading politicians and their friends. A U.K.-appointed governor is now in charge.

In an AP report, former premier Galmo Williams said, "Our country is being invaded and re-colonized by the United Kingdom, dismantling a duly elected government and legislature and replacing it with a one-man dictatorship."

Turks and Caicos is a British Overseas Territory about 500 miles southeast of Florida. Its 25,000 residents have U.K. passports. Its beaches attract around 300,000 tourists a year.

British Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant said the suspension could last up to two years while governor Gordon Wetherell "puts the Islands' affairs back in good order," according to the AP. Elections for a new government will be held by July 2011, Bryant said.

Meanwhile, will the U.K.'s audit into the government's accounts reveal any FCPA compliance problems for investors in T & C during its former home-rule regime?
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The Feds Should Take A Meeting

Husband-and-wife movie producers Gerald and Patricia Green are now on trial in LA for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Prosecutors allege they paid more than $1.8 million in bribes to Juthamas Siriwan, a former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, in return for $14 million in contracts to stage the Bangkok Film Festival. They're also charged with conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction, and filing false tax returns. He's 76, she's 54, and they're now facing up to five years in prison for each FCPA charge, up to 10 years for each tax count, and up to 20 years for the money-laundering and obstruction charges.

Theirs is the third FCPA-related trial this year. In July, Frederick Bourke of the Dooney & Bourke handbag company was convicted by a jury in Manhattan of conspiracy to violate the FCPA. A month later, William Jefferson, the former nine-term congressman from Louisiana, was found guilty on a similar charge (among 10 others) in Alexandria, Virginia.

We don't know how many currently-serving U.S. Attorneys or Assistant U.S. Attorneys had seen an FCPA trial before this year. But the number could be zero or close to it. So going into the recent trials, prosecutors didn't have a lot of courtroom-tested resources to draw from. That might explain why the government's proposed jury instructions on the FCPA counts in the Greens' case are copied verbatim from Judge Shira Scheindlin's instructions in Frederic Bourke's trial. There's one problem though. Those instructions contained some errors.

The most glaring mistake concerns the "interstate commerce" element of an FCPA offense. That instruction, as they'd say in Hollywood, is just so 1997. As Prof Mike Koehler explained on his blog,

The [Bourke] instructions say (on pg. 24) that a "domestic concern" (as Bourke is under FCPA-speak) "must have intended to make use of the mails or a means or instrumentality of interstate commerce" in order to violate the FCPA. This is the so-called "territorial" jurisdictional provision found at 78dd-2. However, the 1998 amendments to the FCPA expanded the jurisdictional reach of the FCPA, as applied to "domestic concerns," by adding an alternative "nationality" jurisdictional provision found at 78dd-2(i) which removes the interstate commerce / U.S. territorial nexus requirements. Thus, a "domestic concern" can be charged and found liable for a substantive FCPA violation even if the prohibited activity took place entirely outside of the U.S. The jury instruction that the "domestic concern" "must have intended to make use of the mails or a means or instrumentality of interstate commerce" is thus just plain wrong.

Another problem in the Bourke instructions and repeated by the government's requested instructions in U.S. v. Green concerns the definition of "foreign official." The instructions depart from the text of the FCPA by inserting a reference to "an instrumentality" where it shouldn't be. True, the word "instrumentality" pops up all over the FCPA, but not in the place in the statute's definition of a "foreign official" where the instructions put it. The government has gone one instrumentality too far.

How serious are the errors? Not very. In Bourke's trial, the anachronistic "interstate commerce" element probably hurt the government's case but not Bourke's defense. Prosecutors had to present evidence that wasn't really needed to prove his FCPA-related violation -- i.e., Bourke's use of an instrumentality (that word again) of interstate commerce while offering or making a corrupt payment to a foreign official. And the reference to "instrumentality" in the description of a foreign official is a bit confusing but not a big deal -- probably harmless error. Still, the government might want to have a quick huddle and check its notes.

The jury instructions from United States v. Bourke, S1 05 Cr. 418 (SAS) (S. D. N. Y.) can be downloaded here.

The government's proposed jury instructions in United States v. Green (United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case #: 08-59(B) - GW) can be downloaded here.

Read all our posts about U.S. v. Green here.

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More from Hollywood: A couple of years ago, LA Times reporter Glenn F. Bunting wrote a great story (here) about the budget for the movie "Sahara." The information he extracted from documents filed in a court case included this:

"Courtesy payments," "gratuities" and "local bribes" totaling $237,386 were passed out on locations in Morocco to expedite filming. A $40,688 payment to stop a river improvement project and $23,250 for "Political/Mayoral support" . . .

Since that story appeared, lawyers and pundits have wondered when the FCPA hammer would fall on Hollywood's overseas "community relations" practices. Could the Greens' case be the first of many?

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New Addresses: The wrageblog has a fascinating post (here) about prison assignments in white-collar criminal cases. Here's what it says about two convicted FCPA defendants who started serving their time this year:

Douglas Murphy of American Rice, sentenced to 63 months after his FCPA conviction, is serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, a medium security facility. However, David Kay, who was tried with Murphy, is serving his 37 month sentence at Texarkana, a low security facility.

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The Iron Ore War

The Chinese government this week alleged that employees of Rio Tinto bribed executives from 16 Chinese steel mills that buy its iron ore for themselves and China's 120 steel producers. Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto is among the world's largest iron ore miners and has been a major supplier to China's steel industry, which is mostly state-owned.

Last Sunday the Shanghai State Security Bureau arrested Stern Hu, the China-born Australian who heads Rio Tinto's Shanghai office, and three other Chinese employees, charging them with stealing state secrets consisting of "sensitive industry data critical to China's iron ore price talks."

The China Daily, an English-language publication that generally reports the Chinese government's views, said executives from five domestic steel makers and officials from the steel-makers association are under investigation as part of the case against the Rio Tinto employees.

Rio Tinto plc has American Depositary Shares that trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RTP. Foreign companies with shares traded on U.S. exchanges have to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. If the allegations against Rio Tinto's employees in China are true, the employees and the company could be subject to criminal and civil FCPA enforcement actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.

Last month Rio Tinto pulled out of a deal with Chinalco -- the Aluminum Corporation of China -- which is the country's largest diversified mining firm. Chinalco planned to invest nearly $20 billion in Rio, in which it already holds a nine percent interest. The Washington Post said Qin Gang, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, denied that the bribery and spying allegations are retaliatory. Rio Tinto has been leading price negotiations with the Chinese iron ore buyers. Those talks deadlocked last month.

The Washington Post said: "China's vague spying and national security laws give authorities wide latitude in deciding what to prosecute. The government treats a sweeping array of economic and other data as state secrets. The maximum penalty for an espionage conviction is life in prison."

The China Daily has published an unusual amount of alleged details about the case. Quoting an anonymous senior manager at a large state-owned steel company, it said Rio Tinto got to know the key executives of the 16 steel mills who have sensitive industry information. "And then Rio Tinto bribed them (to get access to industry data), which has become an unwritten industry practice," the executive reportedly said.
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