by: Jacob Gershman
The Department of Justice official overseeing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is leaving government to join Morrison & Foerster LLP as a partner, the firm announced Monday.
Charles Duross, who ran the Justice Department’s FCPA unit for four years, will run Morrison & Foerster’s global anti-corruption practice, the firm said.
“In the last two decades, there have been only three chiefs of DOJ’s FCPA program, and Chuck is one them – recognized globally as the leading foreign bribery prosecutor in the United States,” Morrison & Foerster Chair Larren Nashelsky said in a statement.
Mr. Duross led dozens of corruption and bribery investigations in Asia and other parts of the globe. Though FCPA enforcement has increased dramatically over the past five years, fines levied by the Justice Department and the SEC declined in 2012, WSJ earlier reported.
In 2012, the Justice Department and the SEC collected a combined $260 million in criminal and civil penalties, down from $652 million in 2011 and $1.8 billion in 2010. Totals for 2013 haven’t been released.
Last March, Mr. Duross, told a forum in Washington, D.C. that his corruption-hunting efforts had made a difference. “Anecdotally, I can tell you I think things are getting better,” he said at the time. “Companies used to come in and wouldn’t have even the most basic things.”
Source: wsj
