Record FCPA Settlements Continue, Important Lessons To Be Learned

The trend of record-breaking settlements under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") continued last week when, on November 4, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") and the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") announced that the agencies had reached settlements totaling more than $236 million with seven oil and gas and oilfield services companies. The settling companies and the combined criminal fines and civil penalties were Panalpina, Inc. ($81.84 million), Pride International, Inc. ($56.12 million), Royal Dutch Shell plc ($48.14 million), Transocean, Inc. ($20.7 million), Tidewater, Inc. ($15.45 million), Noble Corp. ($8.16 million), and GlobalSantaFe Corp. ($5.8 million). Not only was this the largest number of companies to simultaneously settle FCPA investigations, three of the settlements have joined the list of the highest ten FCPA settlements of all time. Companies can take several important lessons from these settlements.