Ohio Northern University presents the 37th Annual Law Review Symposium, “Who’s Afraid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Legal and Ethical Issues in Anticorruption Law,” in the Pettit College of Law’s Celebrezze Moot Court Room on Friday, March 28. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. This symposium is open to the public.
Speakers at the symposium will discuss the various areas of dealing with business, political, and legal corruption, with a specific focus on combating corruption both domestically and internationally.
Kathleen M. Hamman’s topic is “Trouble Abroad: The Internationalization of Corruption Prosecution,” and her presentation will focus on the internationalization of corruption prosecutions, both in terms of transnational bribery and efforts to combat kleptocracy. It will address issues related to multijurisdictional prosecution, international transfer of evidence, ne bis in idem, and sovereign asset repatriation. Hamann is a partner in the White Collar Practice at White & Case in Washington, D.C., focusing on white-collar enforcement and compliance matters, with substantial experience regarding enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and multijurisdictional government investigations. Prior to joining White & Case, Hamann provided almost two decades of federal service to the United States Government, working for both the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of State.
Jan Handzlik, who will speak on “Against All Odds: Representing Targets and Defendants in FCPA Investigations and Prosecutions,” is a litigation partner in Venable’s Securities Enforcement and White-Collar Defense Practice Group and co-chair of the firm’s Anti-Corruption and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Group. He represents companies and individuals in investigations, prosecutions and regulatory matters nationwide and specializes in complex civil business litigation. Earlier, Handzlik served as a federal prosecutor in the Major Fraud and Special Prosecutions Section of the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. A nationally recognized authority on business crime and foreign bribery matters, Handzlik defends white-collar criminal cases, civil and criminal securities enforcement proceedings, and matters involving financial fraud and international commerce.
Elena Helmer will discuss the legal risks and real consequences of corruption in NGO projects abroad. International NGOs now incur many of the same corruption-related risks as traditional business organizations, including liability for FCPA and UK Bribery Act violations, as well as unique risks related to corruption and fraud in their programs abroad. To reduce exposure, implementation of rigorous compliance programs is a necessity. However, the conditions in which many international development NGOs operate make anticorruption compliance a very challenging task while, as recent actions demonstrate, the lack of compliance can be very costly. Helmer is a professor at ONU and serves as assistant director of the university’s LLM program in Democratic Governance and Rule of Law. Prior to ONU, she taught at the University of Michigan Law School, Capital University Law School, St. Petersburg Institute of Law in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Kazakh State University School of Law in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Helmer currently serves as the co-chair of the International Anticorruption Committee of the American Bar Association Section on International Law.
David Hess will take a look at the big questions individuals should be asking with respect to the challenges of combating corruption in international business. Hess is an associate professor of business law and business ethics at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and the faculty director of the Nonprofit and Public Management Center at the University of Michigan. Hess’ research focuses primarily on the role of the law in ensuring corporate accountability.
Jonathan Shapiro, the integrity compliance officer (ICO) for the World Bank Group, will discuss the World Bank’s anticorruption efforts. He will describe the ways in which the World Bank deals with entities found to have engaged in misconduct. Specifically, he will talk about the Bank’s Integrity Compliance Office and its efforts to ensure that entities that have been mandated to adopt and implement Integrity Compliance Programs are actually doing so. Prior to becoming the ICO, Shapiro spent more than 18 years conducting and managing investigations at the state, national and international levels. His experience includes more than a decade at the Bank’s Integrity Vice Presidency, most recently as the deputy manager of external investigations.
Timothy W. Ulrich, general counsel to the Transworld group of companies, a group of oil companies based in Hamilton, Bermuda, will discuss practical Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other similar anti-bribery statutes, such as the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, from the perspective of an international practitioner. He will describe the challenges American lawyers often face in dealing with different cultural and legal backgrounds of employees engaged in foreign projects, as well as different cultural and legal approaches to penalties and enforcement. He also will focus on the practical challenges facing in-house counsel, including the role of counsel-strictly the legal officer or the conscience of the company; conflicts in the dual role of being counsel while at the same time serving as compliance officer and/or a member of the board of directors; and attorney-client privilege issues that may arise when giving advice or when the lawyer becomes a witness in an FCPA investigation. Ulrich has been a practicing international lawyer for more than 39 years and has experience in analyzing, structuring, documenting, managing, negotiating, and closing large and/or complex domestic and international transactions.
