An attorney who co-authored a controversial U.S. Chamber of Commerce paper proposing changes to the nation’s foreign bribery statute has been appointed the FBI’s general counsel.
Andrew Weissmann, who had been co-chair of Jenner & Block’s white collar defense and investigations practice and a member of its management committee, left the firm Sunday, according to Am Law Daily. The previous FBI general counsel, Valerie Caproni, left the FBI to work as a general counsel for Northrop Grumman earlier this month. Weissmann is the former director of the federal government’s Enron task force.
Last year, working for the Chamber, Weissmann wrote a paper with Alixandra Smith of Jenner & Block proposing changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the 33-year-old law that prohibits bribes to foreign officials to obtain or retain business.
In its report “Restoring Balance: Proposed Amendments to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” the Chamber it said that the FCPA is a costly burden to business and “there is also reason to believe that the FCPA has made U.S. businesses less competitive than their foreign counterparts who do not have significant FCPA exposure.” The paper called for five specific reforms including limiting a company’s “successor liability” for the prior actions of a firm it has acquired and giving a clear definition of “foreign official” under the statute.
The Open Society Foundations, a George Soros-funded organization issued a report, charging that that Weissmann’s plan would “significantly reduce the scope and efficacy of the FCPA while substantially undermining more than 30 years of successful U.S. leadership in promoting global anti-corruption standards. “[T]he Chamber’s proposal looks more like a license to commit pervasive and intentional bribery than a modest attempt to eliminate the risk of prosecutorial over-reach,” the report said.
Weissmann previously worked with FBI Director Robert Mueller while serving as his special counsel in 2005, after the Enron task force’s work was completed.
While heading that special investigative committee, Weissmann oversaw the prosecutions of Enron executives Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow.
Before the Enron task force was formed, Weissman spent 15 years working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, serving as the criminal division chief from 2000 until 2003.
Susan Levy, Jenner’s managing partner at Jenner & Block said that the firm will “miss him greatly but congratulate him on this wonderful achievement.”
