We Confess Our Love

There’s no subtle way to say this: We love Shearman & Sterling’s FCPA Digest.

The January 2012 edition is nearly seven hundred pages. In it are every DOJ and SEC enforcement action —  catalogued, explained, and analyzed. There are also parallel cases (private suits), ongoing investigations, and all the DOJ opinion procedure releases.

Shearman & Sterling partner Philip Urofsky is the editor-in-chief. He took over a few years ago from founding editor Danforth Newcomb. Nearly twenty others are listed as editors and contributors. No wonder. The FCPA Digest is a monumental work and an amazing gift to the compliance world.

That’s right. It’s a gift — available to anyone without charge.

The DOJ and SEC don’t publish FCPA case compilations. In fact, those agencies rely on the FCPA Digest and often include it with official compliance-related submissions to the U.N., OECD, and other international groups.

The current edition starts with a thirty-page ‘trends and patterns’ section that can also be downloaded separately. It’s an outstanding analysis of the state of FCPA enforcement. Included are discussions about 2011’s settlements, trials, reform efforts, the financial rewards (or not) of self-disclosure, and even the U.K. Bribery Act.

A few other observations (among many) from trends and patterns about enforcement in 2011:

• Judges in multiple districts largely adopted the government’s expansive interpretation of what constitutes an “instrumentality” of a foreign government, including state-owned entities indirectly controlled by a foreign government

• Despite claims that the government extracted exorbitant fines in FCPA matters, the average penalty continued to be less than $25 million

• The DOJ and the SEC almost completely withdrew from their prior practice of routinely requiring an independent monitor in all cases and demonstrated a willingness to accept various forms of self-monitoring

We use the FCPA Digest every day in our work here. And our admiration for the publication keeps growing.

The January 2012 editions of the FCPA Digest and Recent Trends and Patterns in FCPA Enforcement can be downloaded from Shearman & Sterling’s dedicated FCPA website here.

Disclosure: Shearman & Sterling is a premium-listed United States law firm in the FCPA Database law firm directory.