Kenneth Polite, former assistant attorney general for DOJ's Criminal Division, will join Sidley on Oct. 1 as a partner and co-leader of its white collar government litigation and investigations practice. Polite's practice will center on "white collar criminal defense, investigation, and compliance matters," Sidley said. For the past two years, Polite has been working in his Senate-confirmed position at DOJ, leading a team of over 1,400 attorneys and staff responsible for carrying out criminal investigations of securities fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, money laundering offenses and public corruption, the firm said. Polite previously served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
A former oil and commodities trader at Vitol Inc., Javier Aguilar Morales, was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing Mexican officials to obtain and retain business for Vitol. According to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on Aug. 3, Aguilar violated the FCPA via bribery and money laundering from 2017 to 2020 to keep business for Vitol with the Mexican state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), and its subsidiary, PEMEX Procurement International (United States v. Javier Aguilar, S.D. Tex. #4:23-00335).
DOJ has been looking closely at companies’ approaches to communications platforms since revising its corporate compliance program criteria earlier this year, Caitrin McKiernan, a Steptoe lawyer, said during a webinar hosted by the firm last week. She said she’s working with multiple clients in assessing their compliance programs to make sure they meet the new standards set by DOJ in March, which could affect whether the agency offers to resolve an investigation without criminal charges (see 2303030056).
Carol Lee, former associate at Clifford Chance, has joined Womble Bond as a partner in the business litigation group. Lee's practice will center on export controls, economic sanctions, Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. proceedings and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters, the firm said.
David Last, former chief of DOJ's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit, has joined Cleary Gottlieb as a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based white-collar and enforcement practice. Last's practice will key in on "criminal and civil FCPA matters, internal investigations, and defending companies and individuals in high-stakes enforcement actions," the firm said.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's bid to dismiss the government's claim that the infamous crypto-exchange executive violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provision (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).
DOJ picked co-managing partner of Jenner & Block, Katya Jestin, and Ropes & Gray partner Alex Rene to serve as independent monitors for Swiss commodity trading and mining giant Glencore under the company's guilty plea agreement for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (see 2205270044). The tenure of monitors will run for three years as part of the resolution struck in May 2022. Jestin will lead a team of Jenner & Block attorneys as they review the company's market integrity compliance, while Rene will head up a unit looking into Glencore's FCPA compliance.
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in SEC v. Cochran could usher in the end of the agency's in-house court for most cases, including Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters, according to Richard Cassin, founder of the FCPA blog. Should this happen, Cassin said in a June 12 post, it would be hard to imagine how the SEC could maintain its current level of enforcement activity.
A Texas court dismissed charges related to a U.S. foreign bribery investigation involving Portuguese banker Paulo Jorge Da Costa Casequeiro Murta, ruling the U.S. violated the Speedy Trial Act by failing to bring Murta to trial within the 70-day limit set in the statute (United States v. Paulo Jorge Da Costa Casqueiro Murta, S.D. Tex. #4:17-00514).
Heightened expectations for cooperation under DOJ’s new corporate enforcement policies present a range of challenges for companies considering whether to submit voluntary disclosures, particularly because the agency’s interpretation of “extraordinary cooperation” is so ambiguous, lawyers said. They also said DOJ’s threshold for “full cooperation” -- a step below extraordinary cooperation -- can sometimes be too difficult to meet.