White-collar crime
In May, The Legal 500 and GC magazine, in partnership with Morrison & Foerster, hosted the first in a series of Anti-Corruption Forums set to take place across Asia. Held exclusively for senior in-house counsel, the event brought together 25 leading general counsel, heads of legal and heads of compliance from across Japan to discuss current anti-corruption trends and share best practices to mitigate emerging risks.
Anti-corruption and anti-bribery practices are a particularly pertinent issue at present, as next year the OECD will conduct its first evaluation of Japan since 2011. Last time Japan was evaluated, the results were far from flattering, with foreign bribery and kansei dango – a form of bureaucrat-led collusion to rig bids for public projects – cited as major issues which required tackling.
Chuck Duross, head of Morrison & Foerster’s global anti-corruption practice – who most recently served as a deputy chief in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice, where he led the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit and was in charge of all of the DOJ’s FCPA investigations, prosecutions and resolutions in the United States – gave a scene-setting presentation to open the day – offering a unique insight into the practices of that agency, which has asserted increasingly broad jurisdiction and international scope. Duross was joined by Morrison & Foerster Asia-based partners, who each shared their practical experience:
