November 23, 2009
If you haven’t seen (or heard) last week’s episode of Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS called LBJ’s Path To War, it’s something special. The hour-long program consists almost entirely of excerpts from President Johnson’s recorded phone calls with advisors and congressional leaders. He’s talking to them about the Vietnam problem. The program covers the period from November 1963, when Johnson took office after JFK’s assassination and there were about 15,000 U.S. advisors on the ground in South Vietnam, until the end of 1965, when the build-up had reached 184,000 combat forces and there was no end in sight. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 19, 2009
Surprising news from the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. William Jefferson is free pending appeal of his conviction in August on 11 corruption counts. Last week U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III sentenced him to 13 years in prison. But the judged ruled on Wednesday that Jefferson can remain free during his appeal, which will likely take at least a year. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 18, 2009
Mergers and acquisitions are back. Seeking Alpha just said: “Over the past few weeks, there has been a resurgence in acquisition activity, fueling an already strong market rally. This news has spanned all regions of the economy ranging from the transportation sector (Burlington Northern being taken over by Berkshire Hathaway) to pharmaceuticals (Schering Plough being acquired by Merck). Most recently, in the consumer sector, Kraft announced its intention to take over confectionery giant Cadbury while Hewlett Packard announced plans to buy 3com.” . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 16, 2009
A Virginia man pleaded guilty on Friday, November 13th to being part of an overseas bribery conspiracy that began in 1996 and ended in 2003. Charles Paul Edward Jumet, 53, was charged in federal court in Richmond, Virginia under a two-count criminal information. He admitted conspiring with others to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by making corrupt payments to government officials in Panama and giving a false statement to the FBI about how he paid some of the bribe money. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
Former nine-term congressman William Jefferson, 63, was sentenced on Friday to 13 years in prison. He was found guilty on 11 of 16 corruption charges, including one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He was acquitted of the single substantive FCPA charge he faced. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 13, 2009
Let’s talk about Mr. Bourke. He was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in jail and fined a million dollars for conspiring to violate the FCPA and lying to FBI agents. People in the courtroom said when he was convicted, Bourke was shocked. So apparently he never expected the jury to find him guilty. But when he was sentenced, he was happy and relieved. So he must have been expecting a lot worse. And that probably means the DOJ never offered him a deal with so little jail time. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 12, 2009
The New York Times alleged yesterday that executives at the private military security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that might have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The payments were “intended to silence [the officials’] criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad,” the Times said. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
Frederic Bourke, the American entrepreneur who led a charmed life and whose prosecution brought new prominence to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $1 million for investing in a bribe-tainted deal in Azerbaijan and then lying to FBI agents about it. . . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
November 10, 2009
Before getting to William Jefferson, this reminder: Frederic Bourke is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan today (Tuesday, November 10) at 2:30 pm. He could be jailed for up to ten years for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and lying to federal investigators.
Now Jefferson: He’ll learn his sentence this Friday in Alexandria, Virginia. Prosecutors want him jailed for 27 to 33 years. And once again there’s a question whether the jury found Jefferson guilty of any FCPA-related offense. This time the answer could influence how long he’ll spend behind bars. Here’s the issue. . . .
November 9, 2009
Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, made a very strange announcement. He confirmed on his Twitter page that the U.S. government had denied a visa to Kenya’s attorney general Amos Wako. What’s strange is that as far as we know, it’s the first time an American official has ever revealed a visa determination under Presidential Proclamation 7750. That’s the executive order giving the State Department the power to exclude foreign kleptocrats, their families and friends. Before now, those decisions had always been made — and kept — in complete secrecy. . .
Read the entire post on The FCPA Blog www.fcpablog.com
