After a 10-minute recess on Monday, Judge Lynn Hughes returned with a carefully scripted list of why he was granting the Rule 29 motion for acquittal on the substantive FCPA counts. “I just didn’t see how anyone on that jury could be thinking I did something wrong,” John O’Shea said in an interview with Just Anti-Corruption. A status hearing on Friday will discuss the fate of six remaining counts against the former manager of a Texas-based subsidiary of Swiss engineering firm ABB Ltd.
Berg & Androphy partner Sarah Frazier developed the theory that the Mexican utility officials were “private individuals” because the utility, although state-owned, was not a monopoly and had competition.
Justice Department Criminal Fraud Section trial attorney Nicola Mrazek left the courtroom fighting tears, according to reporter Deb Hensel, who covered the trial for Just Anti-Corruption.
Defense attorney Joel Androphy told Just Anti-Corruption he wasn’t overwhelmingly confident that the judge would grant an acquittal when he presented the motion, but the lack of evidence presented by the government compelled him to roll the dice.
But few details were given during the cross-examination about alleged bribes paid in Mexico on behalf of Microsoft and IBM.
On the stand all day Thursday, Fernando M. Basurto Jr. was questioned by senior trial attorney Nicola Mrazek of the Justice Department’s criminal Fraud Section.
Charles Duross, deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit, was in court to question the first witness of the day.
At a pre-trial hearing yesterday, attorneys for both sides reviewed the judge’s instructions to jurors for more than three hours in an attempt to help explain the complex collection of documents jurors will be asked to consider.
The former employee of the ABB Ltd. subsidiary said he didn’t realize that flying Mexican officials’ wives to New York was illegal. He was also asked about conduct in the Philippines.
In an evidentiary hearing on Friday, the defense presented Prof. Hans Baade of the University of Texas, who is expected to further parse the “foreign official” issue according to OECD criteria.
A federal judge refuted the defendant’s arguments that he had not violated U.S. foreign bribery laws because the alleged recipients were not foreign officials.
A Miami businessman will challenge the Justice Department’s interpretation of “foreign official” in an appeal of his August foreign bribery conviction.
The co-conspirators were named by the U.S. in advance of the trial of John J. O’Shea, a former manager for ABB Inc. in Houston.
The University of California Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program reviewed a copy of the 2008 whistleblower letter that sparked the three probes of public contracts in Brazil.
One of the world’s largest insurance firms entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and a settlement with the SEC totaling nearly $16.3 million for alleged illicit conduct in seven countries.
BEST FCPA LAWYERS PRACTICE GROUP OF THE YEAR. Main Justice held an awards luncheon in Washington, D.C., to honor top firms in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act arena. This video shows announcement of the finalists and winner in the Practice Group of the Year category.
Mary Jacoby is the founder of Main Justice and Editor-in-Chief of Just Anti-Corruption.
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- Attorney Convicted in Multimillion-Dollar Stock Fraud
- Army National Guard Captain Charged for Alleged Role in Bribery and Wire Fraud Scheme and Two Former Soldiers Sentenced for Their Roles in a Related Scheme
- Two Foreign Nationals Sentenced in Houston to Prison for Human Smuggling
- Former Dallas Securities Broker Sentenced in Oklahoma to 84 Months in Prison for Role in Stock Manipulation Scheme
- Oregon Man Indicted for Alleged Role in $50 Million Securities Fraud Scheme
- Pennslyvania Inmate Sentenced to Life in Prison for Violent Murder of Fellow Inmate
- Former Construction Company Owner Indicted in Nevada for Income Tax Evasion
- Michigan Physician Pleads Guilty for Role in Medicare Fraud Scheme
- Medicare Fraud Strike Force Charges 89 Individuals for Approximately $223 Million in False Billing
- Community Mental Health Center Program Coordinator Sentenced to 70 Months for Role in $63 Million Fraud Scheme
- Anti-Corruption Portal of the Americas
- City of London Police
- Global Financial Integrity
- GRECO
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Pacer (U.S. Court Documents)
- State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
- TRACE International
- Transparency International
- U.K. Courts
- U.K. Ministry of Justice
- U.K. Office of Fair Trading
- U.K. Serious Fraud Office
- U.S. Department of Justice
- U.S. Department of Justice FCPA Page
- U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
- U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
- U.S. House Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
- U.S. Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Litigation Releases
- U.S. Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
- United Nations Convention Against Corruption
- World Bank Governance and Anti-Corruption
- World Economic Forum - Corruption Initiative