Sep. 13, 2012
Jan L. Handzlik
See more on Jan L. HandzlikVenable LLP Los Angeles Litigation Specialty: foreign bribery, financial fraud, white-collar criminal defense
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases usually get settled before they go to court, Handzlik said.
But in the case against his clients, Lindsey Manufacturing Co. and its CEO Keith Lindsey, there was no question they would fight.
"Under the circumstances that we faced here - the possible destruction of the business and that they insisted on their innocence - the decision to go to trial was an easy one," he said.
In the fall of 2010, the company and its executives were charged with violating the FCPA by allegedly bribing officials of Mexican government-owned electricity utility CFE. U.S. v. Aguilar et al., 10-CR-1031 (C.D. Cal., filed Sept. 15, 2010).
Handzlik and Crowell & Moring LLP attorney Janet Levine, who represented the company's chief financial officer, Steve Lee, took the case to trial in March 2011, making it the first time an FCPA case against a company would have its fate decided by a jury, Handzlik said.
After a nearly six-week jury trial, the company and its executives were convicted of the charges.
But just before the trial ended, Handzlik and Levine filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds of a pervasive pattern of prejudicial prosecution misconduct.
"It seemed clear to us that the prosecutors had not played fair throughout the investigation and trial," Handzlik said. In support of their motion, they filed about 115 pages of legal argument and hundreds of pages of exhibits.
In December 2011, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz granted their motion to dismiss the indictment with prejudice, citing a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct.
Prosecutors then filed an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but later moved to voluntarily dismiss it.
"I think that the FCPA unit at the [Justice Department] became overconfident," he said. "They hardly ever have to put on their proof and are hardly ever challenged. I don't think the prosecutors ever thought they'd have to try this case."
As for the case's impact, Handzlik added, "It's frequently cited by those seeking revisions to the FCPA and changes in [Department of Justice] enforcement policy."
A former federal prosecutor himself, Handzlik said that the act should be clarified.
"It's ambiguous and too broadly reaching," he said, "and leaves an awful lot of discretion in the hands of prosecutors."
- PAT BRODERICK
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