It has been reported that the UK Bribery Bill, introduced in March 2009, made it out of Parliament before the upcoming general election. The Bribery Bill is a significant departure for the UK in the area of foreign anti-corruption. It is significantly stronger than the FCPA. Many internationally focused US companies have offices in the UK or employ UK citizens in their world-wide operations. This legislation could open them to prosecution in the UK under a law similar to, but stronger than, the relevant US legislation.
On Alcoa and Bahrain, the FCPA Investigation Du Jour: – Law Blog – WSJ
April 6, 2010 By
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Learn it, live it, love it. Because it appears it’s here to stay.
The latest in a growing list of high-profile foreign bribery cases involves metals giant Alcoa and the Persian Gulf state Bahrain. According to this story out Tuesday, written by the WSJ’s Amir Efrati, US and UK prosecutors are investigating a prominent Canadian businessman for money laundering and bribery as part of a two-year investigation centering on Alcoa.
According to the story, the prosecutors have unearthed new documents that they believe show the involvement of Victor Dahdaleh, a longtime agent of Alcoa who helped negotiate contracts with companies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
No charges have been filed against Dahdaleh, a Canadian citizen in his 60s who lives in London. His lawyer declined comment.
Since 2008, reports Efrati, U.S. prosecutors have been investigating whether Pittsburgh-based Alcoa was involved in bribing government officials in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain in exchange for business in possible violation of the FCPA, according to people familiar with the matter.
Representatives of Alcoa and Alba, a Bahrain government-owned manufacturing company, said they are cooperating with authorities. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department and a spokesman for the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office declined to comment.
Prosecutors now have private financial records that they believe show that from 2001 to 2005, a company controlled by Dahdaleh made several million dollars in payments to the personal bank account of a former Alba senior executive.
via On Alcoa and Bahrain, the FCPA Investigation Du Jour: – Law Blog – WSJ.
Google Labs Spawns Data Explorer
March 19, 2010 By
Yet another creature has crawled out of the muck that is the mad scientist home of Google Labs (news, site). This one’s intent on helping you visualize and explore publicly-available data.
Why the Public Data Explorer?
Following on the heels of efforts in the US and UK to get public data online and mined in an infinite variation of ways, Google Labs has now launched the Public Data Explorer. According to Google, this project “makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate.”
As far as brand new ideas and technologies go, this one’s a bit of an also-ran (and is built on tech that Google acquired in 2007). Everyone and their brother is going after the issue of making sense out of massive public datasets right now. Why now? Because we finally have two critical pieces of the puzzle:
- The raw computing power to handle extremely large public datasets
- The in-development protocols for the semantic web, which make it possible to break these datasets down into context that computers can make sense of
So No Big Deal?
Well, don’t be so fast to judge. The issue of visualizing and exploring large public datasets is a young field with plenty of room for advancements. A lot of the charts today’s tools generate are complex and incomprehensible to the average person, though they’re exciting as far as the bleeding edge of technology.
There’s plenty of room to innovate in this space, and in ways no one has thought of yet. So an organization with the size and collective mind-power of Google has a shot at making leaps that could amaze us all. Or not. It’s all in the implementation.
Google bosses convicted in Italy – BBC News
February 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
An Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing an autistic teenager being bullied.
The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online.
Judge Oscar Magi absolved the three of defamation but convicted them of privacy violations.
The UK's former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.
The three employees, Peter Fleischer, David Drummond and George De Los Reyes, received suspended six-month sentences, while a fourth defendant, product manager Arvind Desikan, was acquitted.
David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google and one of those convicted, said he was “outraged” by the decision.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-21
February 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
- @tfoxlaw thank you for the RT in reply to tfoxlaw #
- RT @IntegreonEDD: Failure to Issue “Litigation Hold” Could Result in Sanctions and Attorney’s Fees http://bit.ly/abIfyp #
- Congrats! RT @IntegreonEDD: Actis Invests US$50 Million in Integreon http://bit.ly/choiVg #
- RT @complexd: Don’t Kill The Lawyers When Courts Demand Electronic Documents, IT & Legal Counsel Must Work Together – http://bit.ly/d7Qtvq #
- RT @mix3travel: Please Rob Me Makes Foursquare Super Useful For Burglars http://bit.ly/bqoxU2 #
- RT @chrisdaleoxford: US-UK #ediscovery differences on video at the Masters Conference http://wp.me/p2KJ5-II #
- RT @ronfriedmann: more detail on Microsoft legal outsourcingto India: Bar & Bench http://bit.ly/a6Jhlv ; Law Gazette http://bit.ly/d95LS6 #
- E-Discovery Processing in Cleveland | 25% discount to local firms/corporations – details: http://bit.ly/c0pXx5 #
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Proposed UK Bribery Bill: It’s Implications and Contrasts to the FCPA | Thomas Fox – JDSupra
February 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In March 2009, the United Kingdom introduced into Parliament a Bribery Bill drafted to consolidate and bring into the 21st Century the various UK anti-corruption and bribery laws. As stated by Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, in her speech of November 18, 2009, the purpose of the Bribery Bill is to “Provide a modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences to equip prosecutors and courts to deal effectively with bribery at home and abroad.” As of February 9, 2010, the Bribery Bill had its third and final reading in the House of Lords, where no changes were proposed, and the bill has now been presented to the House of Commons for the first reading.
With wide cross-party support it is anticipated that the Bribery Bill will pass the House of Commons and become law by May, 2010. The Bribery Bill amends and repeals existing anti-bribery offences under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 and abolishes the UK common law offenses of bribery and embracery (bribery of jurors). This proposed legislation represents a long awaited simplification of the law on corruption and makes the UK compliant with its international obligations under the OECD. It will have a major impact on the way businesses connected to the UK manage their international business.
via Proposed UK Bribery Bill: It’s Implications and Contrasts to the FCPA | Thomas Fox – JDSupra.
Nine British companies in US bribery inquiry – Times Online
February 14, 2010 By 1 Comment
Nine British companies are being investigated by American authorities for allegedly paying bribes to win business in overseas markets, according to new research.
The study by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the UK law firm, will further stoke fears about the growing reach of international regulators.
This month, in one of the biggest corruption cases to date, BAE Systems, the defence contractor, agreed to pay £285 million in fines and to plead guilty to minor accounting violations after it was accused of paying bribes to win defence contracts. The deal brought to an end a six-year investigation led by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO). BAE has always denied bribery.
Other British companies are also being pursued for allegedly bribing foreign officials.
The DOJ and other leading US regulators are investigating at least 111 companies for suspected bribery in overseas markets, Freshfields said. Of those, 33 are from outside the US, including 9 from Britain.
Multinational companies are being targeted under a US law known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which gives American regulators jurisdiction to pursue foreign companies as long as they conduct some business in the US.
The DOJ and other US regulators handed out a total of $620 million in fines for FCPA violations last year, Freshfields said. That was a seven-fold increase from 2007, when fines stood at $87 million.
via Nine British companies in US bribery inquiry – Times Online.
UK Gov Surpasses US Gov in Number of Public, Open Data Sets
January 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In the never-ending argument over which country is Number 1, the UK has just surpassed the US in one particular area: that of open data.
UK Public Data Treasure Trove
With Data.gov.uk, the UK now has 2,879 public data sets available through the web for developers to use. Compare this to the 1,074 available from the US government through Data.gov.
Resulting from the Power of Information Taskforce Report, the UK's sets include statistical data on adults who have participated in alcohol-related violent crimes, the blood-lead levels of workers in the UK who were exposed to lead, road congestion and even details on the impact of the economic downturn on participation and attendance to culture and leisure activities and events.
There are already 26 apps on the site that take advantage of the data, thanks to the 2,400 registered developers who were given access to a preview version of the site. Those who aren't developers can submit ideas for new applications or participate in the discussion forums.
via UK Gov Surpasses US Gov in Number of Public, Open Data Sets.
Take Five: Corporate Corruption, A Worldwide View – Boardmember.com
January 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
What do you get when you combine the acronyms FCPA, SEC, UK and US? Answer: trouble for public companies in both countries. Lawmakers are cracking down on corporate corruption and as Asheesh Goel, partner, Ropes & Gray, explains, the legal landscape is changing rapidly and prosecutors around the world are ready to make an example out of your company.
[continued] Take Five: Corporate Corruption, A Worldwide View – Boardmember.com.
Outsourcing News: Eversheds Pilots South African Joint Venture to Support Growth Plans
January 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
International law firm Eversheds today announced that it is to pilot an innovative joint venture with its South African office to provide outsourced legal services to clients. The six month pilot will see a range of basic scope and commoditised legal work for the firms international client accounts completed in South Africa.
Commenting on the move, Bryan Hughes, Eversheds chief executive said:
“The legal sector is in the eye of a perfect storm – we have been subjected to the most difficult trading conditions that any of us have ever faced leading to huge downward pressure on pricing. These pressures are only going to be compounded by anticipated deregulation in the wake of the Clementi reforms and our research tells us that fee levels are not going to return to those generated in previous years. Consequently, those firms that are going to survive, let alone thrive, are those that face up to the reality of the seismic change facing our sector and transform the manner in which legal services are delivered.
“We see the market pressures and regulatory changes as offering a progressive firm like ours, huge opportunities for the future. The price and budgetary squeeze resulting from the credit crunch has opened up considerable opportunities for Eversheds to take more strategic legal work from our competitors, one of our stated strategic objectives. However at the same time, we have the skill set to protect and expand the increasing demand for commoditised services, such as contract review and enforcement actions. The biggest complaint from general counsel is that law firms will not embrace change. That's not Eversheds' ethos.”
The setting up of the joint venture in South Africa is an extension of the firms 'networked law' approach in the UK which longstanding clients of the firm are already familiar with. Eversheds uses its network of offices to move work from higher cost centres to lower cost centres giving clients the benefit of a high quality service but delivered cost effectively.
