Arnold & Porter LLP partner Claudius Sokenu discusses the growing complexity of managing of multi-national and multi-jurisdictional investigations. Topics include privilege issues, data privacy, and a company’s concerns about its stock price versus analysts’ interest in how a probe will affect that stock price.
When there are tensions between media crisis managers and the lawyers, Sokenu says: “The goal is always the legal issues first.”
Sokenu was a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyer in 2001, when oil services company Baker Hughes was issued a cease and desist order to stop making payments to foreign officials for business. [Article continues below]
After the payments continued, Baker Hughes became the first company subject to a joint SEC-Department of Justice probe, agreeing to pay $44.1 million in 2007 to settle charges – at the time, the largest FCPA penalty ever.
The Baker Hughes case “is now the template” for government FCPA enforcement, Sokenu notes.
