Six FCPA Indictments Of Individuals, Seven Guilty Pleas, In 2020

Last year financial penalties totaling a record $6.4 billion were brought against 12 companies in conjunction with Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions by the DOJ and the SEC. Goldman Sachs paid $3.3 billion, which included a record $1.26 billion criminal penalty. A former banker at the company, Asante Berko, was charged civilly with violating and aiding and abetting violations of the FCPA anti-bribery provisions. The SEC alleged that he helped a Turkish energy company win a power plant contract in Ghana by arranging and paying bribes through an intermediary. A former senior vice president at Paris-based Alstom SA, Lawrence Hoskins, was acquitted by the trial judge of one FCPA conspiracy count and six substantive FCPA counts after being found guilty by a jury in 2019. He was, however, sentenced to more than a year in prison for money laundering.