In a commentary, FCPA Blog Senior Editor Andy Spalding, a lecturer at the International Anti-Corruption Academy and professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, discusses the Department of Justice’s FCPA Pilot Program, including how it can benefit defendants.
The Pilot Program offers two primary benefits: penalty reduction and the possibility of declination.
“The program provides that if a company has cooperated and remediated per the memo’s requirements, but has not voluntarily disclosed, it can receive up to a 25 percent reduction off the bottom of the Sentencing Guidelines fine range,” Spalding writes. “But if a company does this plus voluntarily discloses, the DOJ ‘may’ provide ‘up to’ a 50 percent reduction off the bottom end of the Sentencing Guidelines range (and will generally not require a monitor).” Those provisions fill a gap in understanding what government would do for defendants in exchange for cooperation.
Further, if the defendant complies with all four requirements–voluntary disclosure, cooperation, remediation, and disgorgement–it may be eligible for a declination. “The Pilot Program is FCPA declination policy, something we’ve needed for a good long while,” Spalding writes. “Although the FCPA continues to award declinations outside the Pilot Program, these have occurred without formal DOJ announcements and without guidance from an explicit declination policy.”
Read the full post at FCPA Blog
