Teva Pharmaceutical’s $519 million enforcement action last month included disgorgement to the SEC of $236 million — the second biggest FCPA disgorgement of all time.
Teva knocked Daimler off the top ten disgorgement list. Daimler disgorged $91.4 million to the SEC in 2010.
Four companies made the disgorgement top ten list in 2016. In addition to Teva, joining this year were Och-Ziff, VimpelCom, and JPMorgan Chase.
* * *
Disgorgement, according to Contributing Editor Marc Alain Bohn, is a remedy authorized by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that’s “used to deprive wrong-doers of their ill-gotten gains and deter violations of federal securities law.”
Disgorgement first appeared in an FCPA enforcement action in 2004 when ABB Ltd disgorged $5.9 million to resolve books and records and internal controls offenses.
Since then the SEC has used disgorgement in most of its FCPA-related enforcement actions.
The DOJ’s Pilot Program introduced in April this year requires companies to disgorge profits to be eligible for a declination.
So far under the Pilot Program, three public companies (issuers) have disgorged profits to the SEC and two privately held companies have disgorged profits to the DOJ.
None of the Pilot Program disgorgements have landed on the top ten disgorgement list.
* * *
Here are the current top ten FCPA-related corporate disgorgements. All amounts also include pre-judgment interest:
1. Siemens $350 million in 2008
2. Teva $236 million in 2016
3. Och-Ziff $199 million in 2016
4. KBR $177 million in 2009
5. VimpelCom $167.5 million in 2016
6. Alcoa $161 million in 2014
7. Total S.A. $153 million in 2013
8. JPMorgan Chase $130.5 million in 2016
9. Snamprogetti $125 million in 2010
10. Technip $98 million in 2010
* * *
For comparison, here’s our current list of the top ten FCPA enforcement actions.
________
Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Comments are closed for this article!