The chairman and ranking Republican the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asked Attorney General Eric Holder today to remove the alleged Christmas Day airplane bomber from federal custody and treat him as a military prisoner.

Joe Lieberman (Gov)

Susan Collins (Gov)

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his underpants on a Dec. 25 Detroit-bound flight, is being held by federal authorities as a civilian. Panel Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee’s ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other conservative senators say the opportunity to gain valuable intelligence now may be lost, since Abdulmutallab is being treated as a criminal suspect with rights against self-incrimination.

“Though the president has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the president’s words are reflected in the actions of some in the Executive Branch, including some at the Department of Justice, responsible for fighting that war,” Lieberman and Collins said in a joint letter to Holder and John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. “The unilateral decision by the Department of Justice to treat Abdulmutallab — a belligerent fighting for and trained by an al-Qaeda franchised organization — as a criminal rather than a [unprivileged enemy belligerent] and to forgo information that may have been extremely helpful to winning this war demonstrates that very point.”

Here is the full letter.

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) demanded to know who decided to let FBI agents read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and treat him as a civilian. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Thursday he believes Holder was responsible for the decision.

DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller defended the Obama administration’s handling of Abdulmutallab. “Those who now argue that a different action should have been taken in this case were notably silent when dozens of terrorist were successfully prosecuted in federal court by the previous administration,â€� Miller said in the statement, citing the prosecutions of al-Qaeda operatives Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui. Read Miller’s full statement here.

Eric Holder (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

As if watching his home town football team lose its chance to advance to the Super Bowl wasn’t bad enough, Attorney General Eric Holder was stuck at the airport on Sunday, according to a fellow passenger.

Holder, a native New Yorker who told the New York Daily News that he was a “died-in-the-wool Giants fan,” watched the Indianapolis Colts defeat the New York Jets 30-17 in the Delta Sky Club at Reagan National Airport on Sunday, according to an online poster.

“He is watching the Colts Jets game with everyone else, plus his security detail. Doesn’t the Attny General of the US fly Air Force? Even if for leisure? I guess this is a good sign that our air system is relatively safe,” wrote FlyerTalk user “andrewpartyman.”

Weather conditions delayed flights at the airport yesterday, according to news reports.

After a year-long review closely watched for signs of the direction the Obama administration’s antitrust regulators will take, the Justice Department today signed off on the merger between ticket giant Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation. But DOJ insisted on a number of changes in the deal.

In order to win regulatory approval, the combined firm agreed to a list of DOJ’s changes to the deal: Ticketmaster will license its ticketing software and divest some ticketing assets, and refrain from bundling tickets with other services in an anticompetitive way, retaliating against venues that choose other ticketing services, or using consumer data in to gain an unfair advantage in its promotion business, according to documents filed today in federal court in Washington, D.C.

“We were prepared to litigate the case, and I told the parties that,” Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney told reporters in a briefing to announce the settlement. “The linked structural and behavioral remedies in this settlement preserve and protect competition, while allowing the parties to achieve any consumer benefits that are associated with the merger.”

The Justice Department, along with 17 state attorneys general, filed both a lawsuit and a proposed settlement that attempts to bring two new firms into the ticketing market to compete with Ticketmaster’s primary business.  Under the proposed settlement,  Ticketmaster will license ticket software to rival concert promoter AEG, and divest a ticketing company to Comcast-Spectator or another DOJ-approved buyer.

The settlement also subjects the combined firm to 10 years of heightened scrutiny of its attempts to sell bundled services, and Varney vowed to follow through on that requirement.

“I will decide what an anti-competitive bundle is,” Varney said in the briefing.

But the long list of remedies doesn’t necessarily represent a major change in antitrust enforcement under the Obama administration, since many observers had expected the Justice Department to block the merger outright.

The companies were interested in the merger for the vertical integration it would provide, and critics of the deal had also focused on the so-called vertical concerns the merger raised, or the kinds of access the deal might close off for rival promoters or ticketing outlets.

“Parties who preserve the basic core of a controversial acquisition are usually relieved — and I’d guess these two are,” said Wayne State University Law School professor Stephen Calkins, in an e-mail to Main Justice.

The remedies in the proposed settlement focus on the horizontal issues of the deal and how to create competing ticketing firms.  Neither Comcast nor AEG is currently a major player in the ticketing market, and no substantial competitor to Ticketmaster has emerged in several years.

“It is less than perfect, and you have got to be a little bit uncomfortable” with companies that don’t already have a presence in the market, said Marc Schildkraut, a partner at the Washington, D.C., Howrey law firm, who worked at the Federal Trade Commission’s competition bureau. ”But they are pretty substantial companies, and DOJ probably tried pretty hard to vet these people [to ensure] that they were going to be serious competitors.”

Ticketmaster’s antitrust counsel, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Steven Sletten, said the Justice Department focused on the horizontal issues because the vertical case was a tough one to make. ”It is quite rare to find legitimate antitrust concerns in vertical mergers,” Sletten said, in a statement. “We felt that the DOJ’s case against the merger was not particularly strong on existing antitrust law.”

Both parties said they had been prepared to go to court. ” DOJ and the parties spent a lot of time negotiating a resolution … that meets the DOJ’s concerns and allows the merger to proceed without the need for lengthy litigation,” Sletten said, “and the business guys at Ticketmaster and Live Nation can get on with integrating the two companies for the benefit of consumers, artists, sports teams, venues, and pretty much everyone in the chain of live entertainment.”

Irving Azoff, CEO of Ticketmaster, said, “We appreciate the Department of Justice’s effort. Their resolution is a great win for fans.”

Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation said: “the Department of Justice was thorough and aggressive in their analysis and their remedies, and we are confident that with this resolution the playing field is competitive and broader as a result of this transaction.”

The deal’s critics said they remained concerned about the proposed remedies. ”While we appreciate the efforts of the DOJ to extract meaningful concessions from the parties, we remain concerned that these two companies, with a history of anti-consumer behavior, will abide only by the letter, and not the spirit of the settlement agreement,” said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, a watchdog group that has been opposed to the deal.

“It is therefore critically important that the DOJ hold the merger company’s feet to the fire to ensure that the settlement will have its intended effect,” she said in a statement.

Upon hearing the news that President Obama told a suburban Chicago court that he would not be able to serve on a jury because of the State of the Union Address, a former Justice Department spokesman said that the president should not skip out on his civil duty.

“The president had an opportunity to signal that jury duty is important and a duty of citizenship, rather than just simply saying he ‘would not be able to serve’,” wrote Mary Kate Cary, a former Justice Department spokesman and White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush.

“When I was a spokesman at the Department of Justice in the early 1990s, I was called for jury duty. Because I was promoting the attorney general’s pro-victim, anti-crime positions daily, I figured the judge would take one look at me and I’d be let off. No such thing. He asked if any potential jurors knew the prosecutor or the defense lawyer personally, and hearing no affirmative answers, started the trial. I couldn’t believe I was kept on the jury, but I have to say, it was an eye-opening experience. I learned a heck of a lot about our criminal justice system — good and bad — and I now think everyone should serve on a jury, whether they’re the president or not.”

The following documents were filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in connection with the proposed antitrust settlement between the U.S. and state attorneys general and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Live Nation, Inc.

Complaint

Competitive Impact Statement

Exhibit A – Letter of Agreement

Exhibit A – Proposed Final Judgment

Exhibit B – U.S.’s Explanation of Consent Decree Procedures

Exhibit C – Hold Stipulation and Order

The Senate Judiciary Committee has added six nominations to the agenda for its Thursday business meeting — three U.S. Attorney nominees and three controversial figures nominated to be Assistant Attorneys General.

Andre Birotte Jr. (gov)

Ron Machen (Wilmer Hale)

The three U.S. Attorney nominees are Andre Birotte Jr. (Central District of California), Richard Hartunian (Northern District of New York) and Ronald Machen (District of Columbia). All three were nominated Dec. 23. Read more about Birotte here. Read more about Hartunian here. Read more about Machen here.

The agenda also includes three high ranking Justice Department appointees whose nominations were not acted on by the Senate last year and whose nominations were returned to the White House at the end of last year’s session — Mary L. Smith to head the Justice Department’s Tax Division, Christopher Schroeder to head the Office of Legal Policy and Dawn Johnsen, to head the Office of Legal Counsel. President Obama re-nominated the three earlier this month.

Dawn Johnsen (Indiana University)

Although the names of Smith, Schroeder and Johnsen were placed on this week’s agenda, committee Republicans have the right to delay action for a week.

The panel’s top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, has formally asked committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to schedule another hearing on the Johnsen nomination. Leahy sent a letter to Sessions regarding the Republican’s request, a Senate aide told Main Justice. It is unclear what the letter said.

Sessions also said Republicans would likely support additional hearings on Smith and Schroeder as well, although he has not formally made such a request.

Andrew Ramonas contributed to this report.

This post has been updated from an earlier version.

Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez (File Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

Since taking the helm of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in October, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez has set about refocusing the priorities of the division — giving higher priority to prosecution of hate crimes, for instance, and working to advance his “agenda of restoration and revitalization” as he described in remarks to Justice Department colleagues at his formal installation ceremony last November.

Perez has also focused on the impact of sub-prime lending on minority communities. He has also testified in favor of a law to ban employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual identity.

Perez has said that the Civil Rights Division, which Attorney General Eric Holder has called the crown jewel of the Justice Department, will return to its historical mission of addressing racial discrimination while also confronting the new civil rights challenges of the 21st century. Perez said he will implement new rules for hiring career civil service lawyers intended to protect the process from politics.

The Civil Rights Division head sat down with Main Justice in his office at the Justice Department on Friday:

Main Justice: Politicized hiring was one of the problems that plagued the Bush administration. One argument critics of the new hiring rules you put in place have made is that the qualifications for the Civil Rights Division attract liberal candidates. What can you do to make sure that political affiliations do not influence hiring decisions?

Perez: “Well it’s the law that hiring decisions are not made with regard to political affiliations and we have made it clear not simply through my words but in writing, we’ve established a hiring process, a policy that clearly sets forth what you can and can’t do in the process of hiring personnel, and that it is not a close call.

“When I served on the hiring committee of the administration of the elder Bush and under Bill Clinton, we had one charge: find the best candidates, period, and that’s what we did and that’s what we’re doing now, and we’ve reduced that to writing, so that what occurred in the prior administration never occurs again.”

MJ: You’ve said that your office is dusting off disparate impact theory, most recently with the case filed in New Jersey. Do you think the courts have agreed with the theory?

Perez: “Every court that’s looked at disparate impact theory — in the housing context and in the employment context and in the voting context — have upheld the viability of disparate impact theory. So it’s clear that this is an arrow in our quiver as we move forward, but it is an arrow that indeed gathered dust so that’s why it’s so important whether it’s in New Jersey or in New York City, where a judge recently granted summary judgment in the New York firefighters case.

“That case is a remarkable set of facts. African-Americans and Latinos in New York City comprise over 50 percent of the police force. They comprise somewhere in the vicinity of 60 percent of the corrections personnel in the city, and firefighters, it’s somewhere in the vicinity of 7 percent. The judge not only found evidence of not only disparate impact in their hiring procedures, but also disparate treatment in that case.

“So I think it’s very important, and that case illustrates that the discrimination that we’d like to say is a thing of the past continues to persist and it’s critically important that our essential services personnel — firefighters, police officers, corrections officers — are the most qualified people and are not victims of discrimination. That’s why we’ll continue to use disparate impact theory whether it’s in fair lending, whether it’s in hiring or whether it’s in voting if the facts support it.”

MJ: I understand your office has taken on a role in regard to defending the government in cases on the employment docket that were previously handled by the Civil Division.

Perez: “I think the USERRA cases used to be in the Civil Division. USERRA [The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act] is the law that protects service members who are doing remarkable service to our nation and then come home and find themselves victimized in the workplace because they don’t get their job back. When I talk about the fact that we’re ramping up enforcement in every area, USERRA is a perfect example of that. We’ve had somewhere in the vicinity of 22 cases in 2009, which was, when you look at the number of cases that were done in the preceding years, I think it’s more than was done in three years. We’ve dramatically ramped up enforcement in that area and the data shows it.

“That’s because people who are serving our country should be treated as heroes when they return home, not as victims, and they should not be victims of wrongdoing in the employment context and so we’re proud to be involved in those cases.”

MJ: The Civil Rights Division recently used Title IX to intervene in a case in New York which a boy was being bullied because he was gay. That statute uses similar language to Title VII in regard to gender discrimination. Do you think that the law as written already protects gay students and employees from discrimination or does the law need to be strengthened in that area?

Perez: “Well Title IX is the title of jurisdiction in that particular case, and it’s not the first time that the Justice Department has been involved in a case of this nature. In the Clinton administration, we were involved in a similar set of facts, and the facts are egregious. A person going to school trying to learn and being repeatedly abused, not simply psychologically, but physically, and the school district being notified, not simply once, but repeatedly, and the complaint alleges that they failed to take action.

“I’m hopeful that our involvement in this case will result in a resolution in that matter so that any boy or girl going to school can ensure that they are in a learning environment that enables them to learn and that doesn’t have them fearful for their life walking to school. As a parent, I want my children to be safe in school and I want my school district to take the necessary steps to keep my kids safe.”

MJ: The Civil Rights Division is also putting emphasis on human trafficking. What are some of your priorities in that area and how do your balance that new area of interest with the division’s other priorities?

Perez: “Human trafficking is a human scourge. We have two types of human trafficking cases that we have been seeing — forced labor cases where people are forced into conditions that amount to involuntary servitude, and then sex trafficking where people are chattel. And they’re no longer just in big urban cities. In the mid-90s we had a big case in Los Angeles, for instance, and we still have cases in there, but they are also in suburban and rural pockets of the country. Wherever you have immigrants you have potential for trafficking and the suburbanization of immigration has really made this a national challenge, and that’s why it will continue to be a priority.

“I really think we can do all these things within our resource complement because number one when you’re happy in your job, you’re motivated and you can get things done. Number two, we’ve got additional resources thanks to the attorney general and the president’s strong commitment to civil rights, so we’ve got a cavalry of 102 new people coming on board this year to help us in all these areas, and that’s very exciting.”

MJ: There was a focus in the Bush administration, particularly in the voting section, on so-called “reverse racism” cases. Do you think the law as it’s written is colorblind and will you file cases on behalf of those who fall outside of the categories that the Civil Rights Division has historically protected?

Perez: “We’ll certainly investigate any charge of discrimination, and that is the charge in the employment context, the voting context, the education contexts and all of the contexts.”

MJ: How is your office preparing for the census and redistricting?

Perez: “Well we’re working closely with our colleagues at the Census Bureau. I speak regularly with the general counsel there. I will personally be actively involved, and have been actively involved, in the marketing because we really have to get the message out there to the public that it is so critically important that everybody be counted. We have to get the message out there that you need not be scared about talking to the census workers. There’s no ill consequences, and there is privacy guaranteed in these conversations, and we have to eliminate the undercount, because the communities that we’re trying to serve, if you’re not counted, you’re not going to get served because your communities lose money.”

MJ: Friday was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Could you talk a little bit about the George Tiller murder case [Tiller was a doctor who performed late-term abortions] and what your office is doing in that area?

Perez: “We’re closely monitoring the state prosecution. We’ve been out in that area since shortly after the incident and we will continue to carefully monitor the case.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2010

WWW.JUSTICE.GOV

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REQUIRES TICKETMASTER ENTERTAINMENT INC. TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO ITS MERGER WITH LIVE NATION INC.

Software Licensing Agreement, Divestiture and Anti-Retaliation Provisions Will Preserve Competition in Ticketing in the United States

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced today that it will require Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. to license its ticketing software, divest ticketing assets and subject itself to anti-retaliation provisions in order to proceed with its proposed merger with Live Nation Inc.  The department said that the proposed settlement will protect competition for primary ticketing, which will in turn maintain incentives for innovation and discounting. The department said that the merger, as originally proposed, would have substantially lessened competition for primary ticketing in the United States, resulting in higher prices and less innovation for consumers.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, along with 17 state attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to block the proposed transaction.  At the same time, the department and the states’ Attorneys General filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the competitive concerns in the lawsuit.   The state attorneys general offices are: Arizona; Arkansas; California; Florida; Illinois; Iowa; Louisiana; Massachusetts; Nebraska; Nevada; Ohio; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; Tennessee; Texas; and Wisconsin.

The Department of Justice cooperated closely with the Canadian Competition Bureau throughout the course of its investigation, and the two agencies worked together to obtain the same remedy that preserves competition in both the United States and Canada.

Under the proposed settlement, Ticketmaster must license ticket software and divest ticketing assets to two different companies—Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and either Comcast-Spectacor or another buyer suitable to the department, respectively—allowing both companies to compete head-to-head with Ticketmaster.  Ticketmaster will also subject itself to court-ordered restrictions on its behavior.

“The Department of Justice’s proposed remedy promotes robust competition for primary ticketing services and preserves incentives for competitors to innovate and discount, which will benefit consumers,� said Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.  “The proposed settlement allows for strong competitors to Ticketmaster, allowing concert venues to have more and better choices for their ticketing needs, and provides for anti-retaliation provisions, which will keep the merged company in check.�

As part of the proposed settlement, Ticketmaster must license a copy of its primary ticketing software to AEG, the nation’s second-largest concert promoter and operator of some of the most important concert venues in the country.  With a copy of the Ticketmaster software, AEG will be able to market a ticketing system that is an attractive choice to venues.  AEG will have incentives similar to Live Nation to provide better services at lower prices.  Within five years, AEG can purchase the Ticketmaster ticketing software, decide to create its own software, or partner with a  ticketing company other than Ticketmaster.  The department said that this remedy enhances short and long term competition in the primary ticketing market.

Ticketmaster must divest Paciolan Inc., a ticketing company that it currently owns, within 60 days to either Comcast-Spectacor, which has already signed a letter of intent to purchase the assets, or some other buyer suitable to the department.  Comcast-Spectacor is a sports and entertainment company with management relationships with a number of concert venues and ticketing experience with its New Era Tickets company.  Paciolan is used by hundreds of venues to sell tickets including major concert venues around the country.  Venues that contract with Paciolan have greater flexibility to lower the ticket service fees that are charged to consumers who buy tickets.  The department said that divesting Paciolan to Comcast-Spectacor, or another suitable buyer, in conjunction with the AEG license, will replace the competitive pressure on Ticketmaster lost as a result of the merger.

Under the settlement, the merged firm will be forbidden from retaliating against any venue owner that chooses to use another company’s ticketing services or another company’s promotional services, including restrictions on anticompetitive bundling.  The merged firm must also allow any client that leaves and chooses to use another primary ticketing service to take a copy of the ticketing data related to that client’s sales.  The settlement also sets up firewalls that protect confidential and valuable competitor data by preventing the merged firm from using information gleaned from its ticketing business in its day-to-day operations of its promotions or artist management business.  Additionally, the merged firm must provide notice of any other acquisitions of a ticketing company so that the department may investigate the competitive effect of such an acquisition.
Together, these remedies will preserve the competition that Ticketmaster faced from Live Nation, a new ticketing entrant, the department said.  Prior to its proposed merger with Ticketmaster, Live Nation had established incentives to reduce service fees to sell more tickets.  Today’s settlement offers a new competitor comparable incentives to ensure ticket sales are maximized for the benefit of consumers, the department said.

Ticketmaster is a Delaware corporation headquartered in West Hollywood, Calif.  Ticketmaster is the world’s largest ticketing company.  In 2008, Ticketmaster sold more than 141 million tickets valued at more than $8.9 billion on behalf of more than 10,000 clients worldwide and earned approximately $1.4 billion in gross revenues.

Live Nation is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Beverly Hills, Calif.  It is the world’s largest promoter of live concerts, with 2008 worldwide gross revenues of $4 billion.  Live Nation also owns or operates more than 75 concert venues of various sizes in the United States.

AEG, headquartered in Los Angeles, is one of the leading sports and entertainment presenters in the world.  AEG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anschutz Company, owns or controls a collection of venues, such as the Staples Center (Los Angeles), Prudential Center (Newark, N.J.), Sprint Center (Kansas City, Mo.) and Citizen’s Business Bank Arena (Ontario, Canada).  The company’s live entertainment division, AEG Live, is one of the world’s leading concert promotion and touring companies with 15 regional offices that has recently promoted national tours on behalf of artists such as Prince, Usher, Kenny Chesney, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Yanni, The Eagles, George Strait, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Dixie Chicks, Hannah Montana and American Idol.  AEG is also a 50 percent owner of Wright Entertainment Group, which manages major artists such as the Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and ‘N Sync.

Comcast-Spectacor, headquartered in Philadelphia, has more than $1 billion in annual sales.  It is a joint venture between a private investor and Comcast Corp., a leading provider of cable, Internet and phone services in the United States.  Comcast-Spectacor owns a national ticketing services company, owns and operates major venues and sport franchises, manages approximately 90 public assembly facilities, and runs a major North American food and beverage concessions company.

As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed 10-year settlement, along with the department’s competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register.  Any person may submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement during a 60-day comment period to John R. Read, Chief, Litigation III Section, 450 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 4000, Washington, D.C.  20530.  At the conclusion of the 60-day comment period, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia may enter the proposed settlement upon finding that it is in the public interest.

The FBI’s six-year investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people, closed a Senate office building for months and nearly paralyzed the U.S. Postal system was the largest inquest in its history and involved 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes.

But it failed to find evidence that identified the anthrax killer or a witness to the mailings, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday in an opinion piece titled “The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved.”

The Journal notes that less than a week after the apparent July 29, 2008, suicide of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., the FBI declared him to have been the sole perpetrator of the  attacks. But, according to the Journal, there is troubling evidence that Ivins could not have acted by himself.

Editor’s note: The following guest commentary from Mike Koehler, an Assistant Professor of Business Law at Butler University and an active writer and speaker on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act topics, first appeared on the FCPA Professor Blog. It has been reprinted below with permission.

To read the original post, click here. To see our story on last week’s undercover FCPA sting, click here.

FCPA Undercover

By Mike Koehler

The Africa Sting case is indeed the largest and most dramatic use of pro-active, undercover investigative techniques in an FCPA investigation.

However, contrary to numerous reports and even statements attributed to DOJ officials, the Africa Sting case is not the first time that pro-active, undercover investigative techniques have been used in an FCPA investigation. In other words, this is not a new development as demonstrated below.

Shu Quan-Sheng

In September 2008, Shu Quan-Sheng (a naturalized U.S. citizen and President, Secretary, and Treasurer of AMAC International (“AMAC”), a high tech company located in Virginia with an office in Beijing, China) was charged in a criminal complaint (see here and here) with, among other things, offering bribes to Chinese “foreign officials” in violation of the FCPA.

An affidavit (see here) in support of the criminal complaint by an FBI special agent describes several pro-active, undercover investigative methods including court authorized electronic surveillance and physical surveillance. Among other things, the affidavit describes several phone conversations Shu participated in connection with the bribery scheme.

Shu plead guilty to FCPA violations (among other charges) and was sentenced to 51 months in prison. (see here).

Gerald and Patricia Green

In January 2008, Gerald and Patricia Green, owners and operators of Film Festival Management (a private Los Angeles based private entertainment company) were criminally indicted for conspiring to bribe an official with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and for making improper payments to the TAT official in violation of the FCPA. (see here and here).

The criminal charges were supported by an affidavit (see here) from an FBI special agent which describes several pro-active undercover investigative methods, including a multiple agent trip to Thailand to witness Mr. Green meeting with the Thai “foreign official.”

In September 2009 (see here), the Greens were found guilty by a federal jury of substantive FCPA violations, conspiracy to violate the FCPA, and other charges. The Greens are scheduled to be sentenced in March 2010.

William Jefferson

In June 2007, then U.S. Congressman William Jefferson was criminally indicted (see here and here). The charges included substantive FCPA violations and conspiracy.

According to numerous media sources (see here), the FBI affidavit released in connection with the investigation describes several pro-active, undercover investigative techniques including cooperating witnesses wearing FBI wires and video surveillance.

In August 2009, Jefferson was acquitted of substantive FCPA charges by a federal jury, but convicted of a wide range of other charges. (see here for more on the Jefferson case). In November 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years in prison and he remains free on bail pending his appeal.

WrageBlog (see here) has also identified two other previous instances of pro-active, undercover investigative techniques employed in connection with FCPA investigations.