Thomas Fox (JD Supra China)

After a sidetrack into the ethical train wreck detailed by the SEC Cease and Desist Order re: KPMG yesterday, I am returning to the blog post series I am running based upon the New York Times (NYT) reporting by Alexandra Stevenson and Sui-Lee Wee...

How important is due diligence on those with whom you are doing business? Why does it matter if a company is owned or controlled by a foreign government or a political party member of a foreign government?

Yesterday I began a (now) three-part series on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions involving PTC Inc. (PTC), Parametric Technology (Shanghai) Software Co. Ltd. and Parametric Technology (Hong Kong) Limited. PTC was previously known as Parametric Technology Corporation, and the two other companies were wholly owned subsidiaries (collectively PTC-China).

Recently the FCPA Professor posted a blog, entitled “Look in the Mirror Moments”, in which he used written commentary by the US Secretary of the Treasury to the Chinese government about the Chinese governments anti-trust investigations as a mechanism to explore critiques of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement.

Yesterday, I celebrated the anniversary of one of America’s cultural lows. But today, I am extremely pleased to open with exactly the opposite, that being one of America’s greatest gifts to the performing arts.

Today we celebrate an anniversary of one of the all-time lows in the American cultural milieu; for on this date in 1970, the television show The Partridge Family appeared on the ABC Television network.

One of the questions that GSK will have to face during the next few years of bribery and corruption investigations is how an allegedly massive bribery and corruption scheme occurred in its Chinese operations? The numbers went upwards of $500MM, which coincidentally was the amount of the fine levied by the Chinese court on GSK.

According to This Day in History, 139 years ago today, Billy the Kid was arrested for the first time, for theft. Billy the Kid was believed to have been born in New York City and was later taken out west by his mother.

“GSK plc sincerely apologies to the Chinese patients, doctors and hospitals, and the Chinese Government and the Chinese people.” With those words, the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) PLC was convicted in a secret trial in a court in the Hunan province of China for bribery and corruption related to its Chinese business unit.

I thought about Bad News Barnes whilst reading some recent Financial Times (FT) articles about China’s fight against corruption. They were “China takes its anti-corruption battle to foreign shores” and “China bribe cases pose test for west as suspects flee” both by Jamil Anderlini. I thought they posed some interesting questions for anti-compliance practitioners, law enforcement officials who...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have made it abundantly clear over the past several years that companies should assess their risk and then manage their own risks.

As many of you know, I am a recovering trial lawyer. So I was very interested when I received a book for review by Paul Batista, entitled Extraordinary Rendition. Not only is Batista a practicing trial lawyer specializing in federal criminal defense...

The GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) corruption matter in China continues to reverberate throughout the international business community, inside and outside China. The more I think about the related trial of Peter Humphrey and his wife, Yu Yingzeng for violating China’s privacy laws regarding their investigation of who filmed the head of GSK’s China unit head in flagrante delicto with his Chinese...

Whatever you might think of where his career went, Elton John had some great early stuff. I still rank Tumbleweed Connection right up there as one of my favorite albums of all-time. And while it was packed with some great tracks, one of my most favorite was Where to Now St. Peter? It was the opening track on Side 2 and dealt with whether a dying soldier would end up in heaven or hell. While...

Next week, Shanghai’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court is scheduled to open a trial against Peter William Humphrey, a 58-year-old British national, and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, a 61-year-old American, on charges of illegally purchasing personal information about Chinese nationals.

Interestingly, there was an article in the Financial Times (FT) by Demetri Sevastopulo and Andrew Ward, entitled “GSK admits to 2001 Chinese bribery scandal”, which reported that the UK pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) had been involved in a prior bribery scandal in China back in 2001. They reported,

The above is the title of a British television show/play/movie which is a farcical romp about a newlywed couple who mistakenly receive an initial shipment of pornographic pictures, then movies and women, all sent from Sweden to England. The plot turns on their attempts to dispose of the ‘offending materials’...

Eli Wallach died Tuesday. For my money, he was about the coolest bad guy out there. Not tough like Lee Marvin, just cool. My favorite Wallach roles were as Calvera in The Magnificent Seven and as Tuco in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

China has long been a highly complex market. Fraught with a myriad of business risks, foreign companies consider potential access to China’s 1.3 billion consumers as too enticing to ignore. For many multinational firms...

In an article, entitled “GSK China probe flags up wider worries”, in the Wednesday edition of the Financial Times (FT) reporters Andrew Jack and Patti Waldmeir discussed the ongoing bribery and corruption scandal involving the UK based pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK). They detailed many of the allegations which had been previously made public against GSK, the effect of these...

Ed. Note-this article is one of a continuing series of interviews of thought leaders in FCPA, Bribery Act and anti-corruption/anti-bribery. In this blog post, I interview Amy Sommers, partner in the Shanghai office of K&L Gates, an international law firm. 1. Where did you go to university and what experiences there led to your current profession? For both undergraduate and law...

About the best thing that you can say for the Houston Texans is that they did not lose on Sunday. Of course they did not play on Sunday, pathetically losing Week 14’s game last Thursday.

Do the intentions behind enforcement of domestic or international anti-corruption laws matter? Or is ‘the law the law’ and it really does not matter what a government’s motives are in enforcing laws that it has on the books.

One of the most dreaded questions in any Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigation is: Where Else? By this I mean that if you have a systemic failure of internal controls in one geographic area it may well be that there are other failures in other areas.

Ed. Note-today’s post is a chart prepared by Amy Sommers and Matt Morley, partners at K&L Gates. I found it to be a great resource to show FCPA enforcement actions involving gift-giving in China.

...“Welcome back my friends” would certainly seem to be an excellent way to introduce today’s topic; that being the stunning report in the Sunday New York Times (NYT), that JP Morgan is under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) scrutiny in China for its hiring practices.

Where’s the ball? That iconic question was asked by Oakland A’s center fielder Chris Young to Houston Astro left fielder Robbie Grossman near second base late Wednesday night, as Grossman was returning to the dugout after robbing Young of a game-winning walk-off home run by literally catching Young’s shot after it was over the left field fence.

One of the questions that GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) will have to face during the next few years of bribery and corruption investigations is how an allegedly massive bribery and corruption scheme occur in its Chinese operations?

If you are in London this week, I might suggest that you drop by the British Film Institute (BFI), which is celebrating the work of the Indian film maker, Satyajit Ray.

The case of GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) is still resonating across the corporate globe.