Welcome to Dorsey & Whitney’s monthly Anti-Corruption Digest. In this digest, we draw together news of enforcement activity throughout the world and aim to reduce your information overload. Our London, Minneapolis, New York and Washington DC offices edit the digest and select the most important material so that you can use this digest as a single source of information.
In this edition, among the many topics discussed, we report on news that the former CFO of Siemens S.A. pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Argentine government officials to secure a $1 billion contract to create national identity cards; Bristol-Myers Squibb agreeing to settle charges that its joint venture in China made cash payments and provided other benefits to health care providers at state-owned hospitals in exchange for prescription sales; and updates on the Tokyo-based company Hitachi, Ltd. being charged by the SEC for alleged violations of the FCPA by inaccurately recording improper payments to South Africa’s ruling political party in connection with contracts to build two multi-billion dollar power plants.
Updates from the UK include a report on the ongoing investigation into corruption in the UK media, which is currently focused on the trial of Chris Pharo and Jamie Pyatt who face charges of aiding and abetting a police officer to commit misconduct in public office; an investigation into the sale of a Belfast property portfolio following accusations that politicians were to gain from an $11 million “fixer’s fee”; and reports that police officers based at the Metropolitan Police Licensing Unit in Westminster allegedly accepted cash payments from a private security firm in return for imposing their services upon bars and restaurants in Central London.
Global updates include reports from China and the government’s continuing anti-corruption campaign, which has recently seen the conviction of two senior officials for corruption and a further official facing prosecution for taking bribes and abuse of position; concern expressed by the German government following allegations made by the Environment Protection Agency in the U.S. that Volkswagen had installed an illegal device in its vehicles that substantially reduced the levels of nitrogen oxide emissions when the cars were undergoing emission tests; the provisional suspensions imposed on FIFA’s President, Sepp Blatter, and Michel Platini, who many touted as his successor, in the continuing corruption matter regarding world soccer; reports that the company managing the water supply and sewage systems in Bucharest, Apa Nova Bucuresti, is under investigation following allegations that the company paid out “millions of Euros” in bribes to Romanian officials in order to inflate the price of water in the city; plus anti-corruption developments in Croatia, Greece, Italy, Singapore and more from around the globe.
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Corruption issues are also addressed in the Anti-Fraud Network’s newsletters: see http://www.antifraudnetwork.com for current and archived material; see also the Computer Fraud website at http://computerfraud.us and SEC Actions at http://www.secactions.com.
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