Tag: recidivist

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Phillips FCPA Enforcement Action: Violations, Remediation and Recidivism – Part 2

We continue our exploration of the Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Philips) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for Phillips actions in China and its Chinese subsidiary, Phillips China. As set out in the SEC Order, Philips was order to “pay disgorgement of $41,126,170, prejudgment interest of $6,047,633, and a civil monetary penalty of $15,000,000” for a total fine and penalty of $62 million. Yesterday we considered the bribery schemes employed by Phillips China. Today we consider the responses made by Phillips which led to its internal investigation, Phillips remediation and the prior FCPA enforcement action.

A. The FCPA Violations

In the SEC Order, Phillips was not charged with the payment of bribes. Rather, Phillips was charged with a failure of internal controls. Under the FCPA, companies which are issuers are required “devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls sufficient to provide reasonable assurances.”

  1. Transactions are executed in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization;
  2. Transactions are recorded as necessary (I) to permit preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles or any other criteria applicable to such statements, and (II) to maintain accountability for assets;
  3. Access to assets is permitted only in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization; and
  4. The recorded accountability for assets is compared with the existing assets at reasonable intervals and appropriate action is taken with respect to any differences.

Philips violated the FCPA “failing to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls regarding distributor transactions and the use of these third parties.” Additionally, “Philips’ internal accounting controls were not sufficient to provide reasonable assurances that transactions were executed in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization and that access to assets was permitted only in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization.”

B. Cooperation and Remediation

Interestingly Phillips did not self-disclose this issue. Nor did Phillips appear to engage in any ‘extraordinary” cooperation. This cooperation was noted in the Order as “Philips undertook an internal investigation and regularly shared with Commission staff the facts developed in its inquiry, including facts previously unknown to the staff, and identified and voluntarily provided translations of key non-privileged documents.” I was particularly intrigued by the statement “facts previously unknown to the staff” which would seem to indicate there were some facts which were previously known to the SEC (and not by the way of a self-disclosure.)

Phillips did engage in remediation efforts which were recognized by the SEC. These included:

  • Phillips made structural improvements to its policies and procedures;
  • The company improved its tone at the top and the middle, with a focus on Philips China;
  • Phillips increased accountability for enforcing compliance policies by its business leaders;
  • The company highlighted compliance as a key component of ethical business practices;
  • Phillips terminated or disciplined Philips China employees involved in the conduct;
  • Phillips terminated business relationships with distributors involved in the conduct;
  • The company also improved its internal accounting controls relating to distributors;
  • Phillips improved its ability to monitor its subsidiaries bidding practices and their use of discounts and special pricing; and
  • Finally, Philips has revised its compliance training.

 C. Prior FCPA Enforcement Action

In 2013 (the year before these actions began) Phillips agreed to its first FCPA enforcement action, also involving the SEC (2013 Order). That matter related to the company’s action in Poland. According to the FCPA Blog, “from 1999 to 2007, in at least 30 bids, employees of Philips’ subsidiary in Poland ‘made improper payments to public officials of Polish healthcare facilities to increase the likelihood that public tenders for the sale of medical equipment would be awarded to Philips. The bribes and kickbacks were 3% to 8% of the contract amounts.” In that 2012 enforcement action, “Philips agreed to pay $4.5 million in the settlement, consisting of disgorgement of $3.1 million and prejudgment interest of $1.4 million.” Of course, Phillips also agreed to “cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of” the FCPA.

As for the remedial actions taken by Phillips for the 2013 Order it stated, “Philips also retained three law firms and two auditing firms to conduct the investigation and design remedial measures to address weaknesses in its internal controls. Included in changes to internal controls, Philips established strict due diligence procedures related to the retention of third parties, formalized and centralized its contract administration system and enhanced its contract review process, and established a broad-based verification process related to contract payments. In addition, Philips has made significant revisions to its Global Business Principles policies and continually revises the policies to keep them current and relevant. Philips also established and enhanced an anti-corruption training program that includes a certification process and a variety of training applications to ensure broad-based reach and effectiveness.”

Given that the Phillips China bribery scheme started in 2014 does it sound like Phillips took these obligations very seriously. I wonder just where those three law firms and two audit firms were looking when they conducted an investigation and designed “design remedial measures to address weaknesses in its internal controls.”  Finally I am not sure where the company’s “certification process” went after the 2013 Order, but apparently not as far as China.

All this means that Phillips is yet another FCPA recidivist. There was no statement in the 2023 Order that Phillips self-disclosed the illegal conduct in China to the SEC. Nevertheless, Phillips seemed to get the benefit of the doubt from the DOJ. In a May 10, 2023 Press Release,  Phillips announced that “The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has closed its parallel inquiry into these matters” and the company intoned that it “fully cooperated with the SEC and DOJ.” Phillips also reported that the FCPA matter had “previously been disclosed in Philips’ Annual Reports 2019 through 2022.”

There has been no statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding Phillips. Further there has been no declination regarding Phillips publicly announced by the DOJ. Given the strong statement about recidivists by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in announcing the Monaco Doctrine last September and the need for speed referenced by Kenneth Polite in announcing changes to the Corporate Enforcement Policy in January 2023; one might have expected some statement from the DOJ.

Or perhaps not. Tomorrow, we conclude with some final thoughts.

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Phillips FCPA Enforcement Action: The Risks with Distributors – Part 1

Last week the Amsterdam based Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Philips) agreed pay more than $62 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) with respect to conduct related to the sales of medical diagnostic equipment in China. This case is yet another recent FCPA enforcement matter involving distributors. It demonstrates once again some of the inherent risks in a distributor sales model, as opposed to the model traditionally seen as the highest risk, the commissioned sales-agent. (Shout out to Harry Cassin at the FCPA Blog for breaking the story to the compliance community.)

According to the SEC Press Release announcing the matter, “Philips’ subsidiaries in China, cumulatively referred to in the order as Philips China, used special price discounts with distributors that created a risk that excessive distributor margins could be used to fund improper payments to government employees.” Equally significant was that the “SEC’s Order also found that employees, distributors, or sub-dealers of Philips’ subsidiaries in China engaged in improper conduct to influence hospital officials to draft technical specifications in public tenders to favor Philips’ products.” The SEC pointed to two examples, “in one instance, a district sales manager at Philips China provided funds to a hospital director in return for the director’s assistance in the procurement process, and, in another instance, Philips China employees discussed tailoring technical specifications for a public tender with hospital directors so that only Philips China and two other manufacturers would qualify for the bid.” As a result of its conduct, Philips was unjustly enriched by approximately $41 million.

I. Introduction

According to the Order, in “China the majority of hospitals and other healthcare providers are state-owned enterprises. These government-owned entities purchase the majority of their diagnostic imaging equipment through public tenders. By 2016, the majority of Philips China’s sales were made indirectly through authorized distributors or sub-dealers engaged by the authorized distributors. By 2018, 91% of Philips’ diagnostic imaging revenue in China was earned through this indirect sales channel.”

Philips China aggressively grew its diagnostic imaging business, winning public tenders in an increasingly competitive market. Phillips was aggressive in its pricing discounts to do so. According to the Order, “in some transactions, at the request of distributors, Philips China provided special pricing discounts on the health technology equipment that it sold to its distributors. However, Philips China’s approval processes and its recording of the special pricing discounts were not subject to sufficient internal accounting controls to ensure appropriate management authorization of the discounts.”

II. The Corruption Schemes

  1. The Hospitals

The Order related that in multiple transactions between 2014 through 2019, Philips China employees, distributors, or sub-dealers engaged in improper bidding practices to increase the likelihood that Philips China’s distributors or their sub-dealers were awarded public tenders to sell medical equipment to government-owned hospitals. There were three general prongs to these bribery schemes. The employee responsible for writing the technical specifications, in consultation with a bidder such as Phillips would provide that same bidder “with a competitive advantage in the public tender prior to the opening of the bidding period” by providing the information to the bidder prior to the formal beginning of the bidding process.

Another scheme was to draft specifications which would meet that bidder’s equipment “to increase the likelihood that the selected manufacturer would qualify for the winning bid.” In the final bribery scheme the “hospital employee directed the winning bidder or its distributor or sub-dealer to prepare the manufacturer’s bid and also two additional accompanying bids to meet the three-bid requirement of public tenders and give the appearance of legitimacy.” Further, “Phillips China employees who participated in the conduct described above included district sales managers, sales employees, and employees in the technical group that supported sales.”

  1. Phillips Responses

The SEC Order pointed to three examples of bribery schemes engaged in by Philips in response to the corruption perpetrated by the health care providers.

a. Bribes for Inside Information

In one example a Philips China district sales manager for Hainan Province delivered approximately $14,500 directly to the home of a director of the hospital’s radiology department in return for the director’s assistance in the procurement process. With the inside information obtained through this payment, “the sales team discussed the specifications to be included in the bid with the relevant hospital director, and its distributor prepared an accompanying bid with another manufacturer’s products.” It ended with a “procurement award for two Philips devices valued at $4.6 million.”

b. Bribes to Obtain Unlawful Influence

In another example, the decision-making directors at a hospital discussed tailoring the technical specifications with Philips China employees so that only Philips China and two other manufacturers would qualify to compete in the bidding process. In October 2017, a Philips China distributor won the bid to sell two Philips devices to the hospital. This tender was won as a result of inappropriately influencing the tender specifications, netting Philips a tender valued at $475,000.

c. Excessive Discounts Provided to Distributors

In perhaps the most classic distributor bribery model, Philips China’s use of special price discounts with distributors created the risk that excessive distributor margins could be used to fund improper payments to employees of government-owned hospitals. The SEC Order did not specify the amount of the discounts or how it differed from the standard (if any) discount provided to Philips distributor.

Join us tomorrow where we consider Philips lack of internal controls, the fine and penalty, the recidivism of Philips and any potential Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement action.

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Life with GDPR

The ABB Enforcement Action from a UK Perspective

Jonathan Armstrong and Tom Fox return for another episode of the award-winning Life with GDPR. In this episode, we discuss the recent ABB Foreign Corrupt Practices Act resolution. Jonathan considers the ABB enforcement action from the UK perspective and opines how a UK judge might consider the company’s recidivism differently than the DOJ did.

Some of the highlights include:

1.     What were the facts?

2.     How would UK court’s view recidivist behavior under the UK Bribery Act?

3.     Where was the SFO?

4.     What is the status of the investigation in Germany?

Resources

For more information on the issues raised in this podcast, check out the Cordery Compliance, News Section. For more information on Cordery Compliance, go their website here. Also check out the GDPR Navigator, one of the top resources for GDPR Compliance by clicking here.

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The Corruption Files

Episode 15 – The ABB Settlement

Establishing trust can greatly affect the outcome of a case. Thomas Fox and Michael DeBernardis talk about ABB’s 2022 bribery case in South Africa, how self-disclosure benefits any situation, the DOJ’s approach on cracking down recidivists, choosing the right people for your team, and being wary of waivers.

▶️ The ABB Settlement with Tom Fox and Mike DeBernardis Background facts to the case. (00:00:29)

Tom lays out the facts of the ABB settlement. Michael points out the DOJ’s plans for penalizing recidivists and ABB’s biggest compliance misstep. (00:07:07)

Tom emphasizes the importance of compliance oversight, being vigilant of billing in high-risk jurisdictions, and the benefit of ABB’s “almost” self-disclosure. (00:12:08)

Mike discusses the impact of trust and incentivizing other recidivists to come forward and the risks of going off of real-time information. (00:18:27)

Tom mentions how having someone with experience concluding resolutions in the DOJ can make a difference. Even with a fairly low penalty, ABB is still required to report on its compliance program. (00:24:22)

Mike prefers having an independent monitor in place. However, he highlights ABB’s trust in their team to do a thorough job of reporting. (00:27:31)

Mike gives credit to ABB’s swift actions and extensive remediation, describing the DOJ’s outcome as “threading the needle”. Thomas believes the case is still a win for compliance. Michael drives home how doubling down on compliance pays off.

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Do you have a podcast (or do you want to)? Join the only network dedicated to compliance, risk management, and business ethics, the Compliance Podcast Network. For more information, contact Tom Fox at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

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ABB FCPA Resolution: Part 5 – A Win for Compliance

We conclude our exploration of the latest resolution of a Foreign Corruption Practices Act (FCPA) violation involving the Swiss construction giant, ABB Ltd. There have been several reference documents used this week and they include the Securities and Exchange Commission Complaint (SEC Order); the Department of Justice (DOJ) Press Release. Plea Agreement (ABB Plea Agreement) and Deferred Prosecution Agreement(DPA), the ABB South Africa Plea Agreement and Criminal Information, the ABB Management Services Plea Agreement and Criminal Information.

Over this blog post series, we have been exploring these key questions: How did ABB obtain such a superior resolution? And, as a three-time FCPA violator, how did the company avoid a monitor? Today, we celebrate how this most unusual FCPA enforcement action is a huge victory for compliance.

How did ABB obtain such a superior resolution?

There appears to be three components to ABB’s avoidance of a monitor. It all began with ABB’s attempt to self-disclose. Please note this attempt was not successful as the South African press broke the story of ABB’s bribery and corruption between the time ABB called to set up meeting and actually sat down with the DOJ. Yet the DOJ was impressed enough with ABB’s intent or at least desire to self-disclose that it spent a considerable amount of ink in the resolution documents detailing how ABB got close but missed timely self-disclosing.

Yet this putative failure at self-disclosure laid the groundwork for everything that followed, eventually leading to the stunning result. As the DOJ stated in the DPA, “in evaluating the appropriate disposition of this matter-including the appropriate form of the resolution-considered evidence that, within a very short time of leaning of the misconduct, the Company contacted the Fraud Section and scheduled a meeting to discuss matters under investigation by the Fraud Section and the Company. The Company did not specifically identify the South Africa misconduct in that meeting request, but it disclosed the South Africa misconduct during the scheduled meeting, subsequently presented evidence to the Offices that it intended to disclose the misconduct related to South Africa during the scheduled meeting and did not know of any imminent media reports when the meeting was scheduled.”

The second component is the above-noted discussion about ABB’s near self-disclosure. While it could have amounted to an own goal, given the lengthy DOJ discussion in the settlement documents, it appears the DOJ received ABB’s near miss more favorably. The second point is something every Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and outside counsel need to understand; that being truly extraordinary.

Matt Kelly identified the one piece of information which took what is now this standard recitation of extraordinary cooperation to a truly high level of ‘extraordinary’. In a blog post, Kelly pointed out that in the SEC Order, it stated, “ABB’s cooperation included real-time sharing of facts learned during its own internal investigation.” This meant “ABB was sharing information with regulators as quickly as it found those facts, without necessarily knowing how such admissions might affect its overall case and settlement chances.” He then opined, “When you don’t know the full extent of your sins and the punishment to follow, but you cooperate with regulators anyway — that’s an impressive commitment to the culture of compliance that the Justice Department wants to see.”

Next were the actions by ABB in their remediation. The Plea Agreement reported that ABB “engaged in extensive remedial measures, including hiring experienced compliance personnel and, following a root-cause analysis of the conduct described in the Statement of Facts, investing significant additional resources in compliance testing and monitoring throughout the organization; implementing targeted training programs, as well as on-site supplementary case-study sessions; conducting continuing monitoring and testing to assess engagement with new training measures; restructuring of reporting by internal project teams to ensure compliance oversight; and promptly disciplining employees involved in the misconduct.” This final point was expanded on in the SEC Order which reported that all employees involved in the misconduct were terminated.

As a three-time FCPA violator, how did the company avoid a monitor?

ABB essentially created its own monitorship around testing its compliance program and reporting to the DOJ. In a section entitled “Written Work Plans, Reviews and Reports”, ABB agreed to conduct a first review and prepare a first report, followed by at least two follow-up reviews and reports. But more than simply reporting, ABB agreed to create and submit for review a workplan for this ongoing testing of its compliance program, as the program was detailed in the DPA. The DPA specified, “No later than one (I) year from the date this Agreement is executed, the Company shall submit to the Offices a written report setting forth:

  • a complete description of its remediation efforts to date;
  • a complete description of the testing conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the compliance program and the results of that testing; and
  • its proposals to ensure that its compliance program is reasonably designed, implemented, and enforced so that the program is effective in deterring and detecting violations of the FCPA and other applicable anti-corruption laws.”

ABB also agreed to meet with the DOJ quarterly to submit and discuss the results of its ongoing testing. While I am sure many other companies have made a similar proposal to the DOJ, through its actions during the pendency of the investigation, ABB convinced the DOJ it could be trusted to follow through with its commitment.

How does all of this work into the DOJ decision not to require a monitor? There is now a 10-factor test that was laid out in the Monaco Memo. Factor 1 is whether the company self-disclosed the incident at issue. Factors 4-6 all relate to conduct and actions when the illegal activity occurred, not after discovery and self-disclosure. Factor 4 relates to the length or pervasiveness of the conduct and whether senior management was involved. Factor 5 reviews “the exploitation of an inadequate compliance program or system of internal controls.” Factor 6 asks if compliance personnel were involved or were basically negligent in failing to “appropriately escalate or respond to red flags.” Factors 7-10 considered ABB’s actions post-reporting, how the company became aware of the matter, its root cause analysis, its remedial actions and overall reduction in the company’s risk profile. While there was no substantive discussion of these factors in the any of the resolution documents, it appears the DOJ criteria for a monitor was not met.

The ABB FCPA resolution represents one of the biggest wins for corporate compliance that we have seen in recent memory. A now thrice-recidivist received a discount on its overall fine and penalty and avoided a monitor through truly exception work after the bribery and corruption was uncovered. Every compliance officer should thoroughly study this matter to see the specific steps ABB engaged in, starting with their first phone call to the DOJ. During your investigation, embrace the DOJ’s need for speed in communicating new and salient facts as they are uncovered, perform a root cause analysis and then remediate, remediate, and remediate. ABB is to be commended and indeed celebrated for its success in this matter.

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Compliance Into the Weeds

The Oracle FCPA Enforcement Action

Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast that takes a deep dive into a compliance-related topic, literally going into the weeds to more fully explore a subject. In this episode, we look at the recently announced SEC Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action involving Oracle. Highlights include:

  1. Recidivist behavior in some countries with similar schemes.
  2. Policy, procedure, and internal controls failures.
  3. Why no monitor.
  4. Compliance programs lessons learned.
  5. What about the DOJ?

 Resources

Matt in Radical Compliance

Tom in the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog

  1. Background
  2. The Schemes in Action
  3. Parking in India
  4. The Comeback and DOJ
  5. What it all means
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Recidivist Tenaris FCPA Resolution

Yet another Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) recidivist was announced last week as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that Tenaris SA would pay more than $78 million to resolve charges of FCPA violations in connection with a bribery scheme involving its Brazilian subsidiary. Back in 2011, Tenaris entered into a Non-Prosecution Agreement  (NPA) with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the SEC as a result of alleged bribes the company paid to obtain business from a state-owned entity in Uzbekistan. Interestingly even though the company had received sanction from both the DOJ and SEC, there was nothing in the Cease and Desist Order (Order) which indicated that Ternaris self-disclosed this additional FCPA violation nor anything to indicate why it was not uncovered until many years after the bribery scheme was implemented and executed.
Background
According to the SEC Press Release, “the resolution with Tenaris is the result of an alleged bribe scheme involving agents and employees of its Brazilian subsidiary to obtain and retain business from the Brazil state-owned entity Petrobras. Specifically, the order finds that between 2008 and 2013, approximately $10.4 million in bribes was paid to a Brazilian government official in connection with the bidding process at Petrobras. The bribes were funded on behalf of Tenaris’ Brazilian subsidiary by companies affiliated with Tenaris’ controlling shareholder.”
Charles Cain, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit, said of the resolution, “Tenaris failed for many years to implement sufficient internal accounting controls throughout its business operations despite known corruptions risks. This failure created the environment in which bribes were facilitated through a constellation of companies associated with its controlling shareholder.”
The Bribery Scheme
The bribery scheme was created to create a business opportunity for Tenaris’ operating subsidiary in Brazil, Confab Industrial S.A. (Confab). The bribery scheme was created with a corrupt Petrobras official who “would use his authority to influence Petrobras to forgo an international tender process for certain contracts for pipes and tubes, thereby favoring Confab, by continuing its status as the only domestic supplier, and allowing direct negotiations with it. Confab would benefit through the elimination of international competitors which may have submitted lower bids and forced Confab to lower its price, if not lose the contract altogether.” In exchange the corrupt Petrobras official received “approximately 0.5% of Confab’s revenue from these contracts” which amounted to some $10 million in illegal payments.
The bribery scheme was effectuated through the formation of Uruguayan-domiciled shell company and creation of a  bank account in its name, where bribery payments were deposited. During the relevant period, the bribes were paid into Uruguayan Company’s bank account for the benefit of Government Official. The funding for the bribes came from another Tenaris affiliated company, San Faustin SA, which had bank accounts in the US and elsewhere which funded the bribe. To hide the payments in the Tenaris books and records, fake contracts were executed between Uruguayan Company and the shell company in which payments were made to the Uruguayan Company “for purported past and future consultancy and advisory services that Uruguayan Company performed.” All of this was done with the knowledge of “a senior Confab employee about the bribe scheme including about the timing of bribe payments being deposited into the Uruguayan Company bank account.”
Thoughts
This matter really is a head scratcher. The first thing that jumps out is the time of the bribery scheme, which was 2008-2013. This overlaps the time frame from the 2011 NPA and DPA, which was for conduct from 2007-2010. Although the conduct at issues in those resolutions was centered on bribery and corruption in Central Asia and not Brazil and South America. It is more than difficult to understand how this bribery scheme was not uncovered when the company went through an allegedly comprehensive FCPA investigation for those resolutions.
Even more troubling is that the company continued engaging in bribery and corruption right through the signing of those settlements and the reporting periods set out in both; for two years under both the DPA and NPA. Under both agreements, Tenaris was to turn over evidence of any additional FCPA violations. Obviously Tenaris did not uncover the additional illegal actions, it certainly appears they did not look very diligently either.
Perhaps one answer is found in the undertakings section of the Order which states “During a two-year term as set forth below, Respondent shall report to the Commission staff periodically, at no less than six-month intervals, the status of its remediation and implementation of compliance measures related to the effectiveness of the anti-corruption policies, procedures, practices, internal accounting controls, recordkeeping, and financing reporting processes particularly as to preventing the use of unaccounted funds for illicit purposes to benefit Tenaris, including the use of funds available to Tenaris’ officers, directors, employees and/or agents as a result of their dual affiliation with Tenaris and San Faustin and related entities.” [emphasis supplied]
This sounds suspiciously like a slush fund was operating which allowed Tenaris’ officers, directors, employees and/or agents to make payments across different (but related) entities. Such payments could be easy to disguise and hard to trace. This might be a reason why Tenaris itself did not uncover the illegal payments and why it did not self-disclose to the SEC. This is also something that every Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) needs be on the lookout for your organization.
Tenaris is required to provide two separate follow-up reviews to the SEC. These reviews are to incorporate “comments provided by the Commission staff on the previous report, to further monitor and assess whether the policies and procedures of Respondent are reasonably designed to detect and prevent violations of the FCPA and other applicable anti-corruption laws (the Follow-up Reports).” Additionally, Tenaris is required to “undertake a final review to further monitor and assess the operation of its FCPA and anti-corruption compliance program and whether Respondent’s policies and procedures are reasonably designed to detect and prevent violations of the FCPA and other applicable anti-corruption laws.”  One can only hope Tenaris will be more thorough under this requirement in the Order than it was under the prior NPA or DPA.
Where did the information which led to this recidivist Order derive? Obviously Brazilian prosecutors is one good guess. Another clue is found in the SEC Press Release which stated, “The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores (SMV) in Panama, the Brazilian Federal Prosecution Service, and the Procura della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di Milano, Italy.” Panama makes sense as a home of one of the Ternaris family of shell companies.  but note the inclusion of prosecutors from Italy as well.
We can only hope that Tenaris does not become the first three time recipient of a FCPA enforcement action.