Manatt White Collar Defense Co-Chair Discusses Recently Issued FCPA Guidelines
"DOJ and SEC Jointly Issue Long-Awaited Guidance on the FCPA"
FCPA Report
November 14, 2012 - Manatt's Jacqueline Wolff, co-chair of the firm's Corporate Investigations and White Collar Defense Practice, spoke to FCPA Report about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act guide that was issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on November 14, 2012.
FCPA Report writes that the 120-page guide addresses a variety of hot topics that many in the space have been debating, such as the definition of a "foreign official" and gift, travel and entertainment expenses. Also provided was a fact sheet about the guide, which boasts that there may be no other area of law the where the agencies have provided the public with as much information about their FCPA enforcement approach and priorities.
Wolff said that the guidance appears to be more substantive than expected.
"Whereas the legal community was expecting a short memo in the vein of the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations, the bible followed by DOJ in deciding when to prosecute companies, DOJ and the SEC have come out with a 120-page manual that addresses thorny questions relating to successor liability, definition of an instrumentality and hospitality questions," she explained. "Although DOJ has noted its views with respect to some of these issues in papers submitted to the courts in FCPA prosecutions and in its Opinion Procedure Releases, this is the first time DOJ and the SEC have collected their views in one place and anonymously disclosed the facts of cases where they decided not to prosecute."