By John Mackie

TORONTO, July 22 (Business Law Currents) – Though Canada has had foreign bribery legislation in effect for over a decade, prosecutions have proven very few and very far between. So it remains to be seen whether the recent guilty plea by Calgary’s Niko Resources under Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act marks a scaling-up of Canadian efforts on this front, or just another blip on the radar screen.

Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA) entered into force on February 14, 1999. The Act contemplates prosecutions in respect of three offences: bribing a foreign public official, laundering property and proceeds, and possession of property and proceeds. In addition, the CFPOA enables prosecutions for conspiracy, aiding and abetting, counselling, and the like.

One aspect of the CFPOA that has attracted criticism from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and Transparency International is that there must be a “real and substantial link” between the offence and Canada. While a bill has been introduced to eliminate this requirement, it has not passed into law, and arguably remains a significant barrier to investigations.

According to the last report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Parliament on the enforcement of the CFPOA, prior to this year there had only been one conviction under the act. In 2005, Red Deer-based Hydro-Kleen Group Inc. pleaded guilty to two counts of bribing a U.S. immigration officer at the Calgary International Airport.

In addition, in 2010, charges under the CFPOA were laid by the RCMP against an employee of Cryptometrics, a facial and fingerprint recognition software company based in Ottawa. The allegations were that payments had been made to an Indian government official to facilitate the execution of a multi-million dollar supply contract. That matter apparently remains before the Canadian courts.

The Niko Resources case is without a doubt the highest profile prosecution under the CFPOA. Niko is involved in natural gas and oil exploration and development in a number of regions, including India, Bangladesh, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Pakistan. In January 2009, the company was notified by Canadian authorities that they were the subject of a formal investigation into allegations of improper payments in Bangladesh.

By Emmanuel Olaoye

NEW YORK, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – Any downgrade in the U.S. government’s credit rating stemming from a failure to raise the debt limit would make it harder for American banks to raise capital at a time that they are facing higher capital requirements, banking experts and industry representatives warned.

By Christopher Elias

London, July 20 (Business Law Currents) – Governments around the world may regret the vitriol they cast at rating agencies as these American companies turn the tables on sovereign debt-marred governments and drive the agenda in the U.S. and EU.

Turning the hunted into the hunters, rating agencies have taken aim at political decisions in the U.S. and Europe as they constrain political decisions and break free from the much-promised legislative clampdown to impact euro zone restructurings and U.S. debt ceiling considerations.

By Anat Admati, guest columnist. The views expressed are her own

PALO ALTO, California, June 15 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) -

Dear JPMorgan Chase Directors

I own some JPMorgan Chase (JPM) shares through mutual funds in my retirement account. I have read Mr. Dimon’s recent letter to shareholders and some of his public comments. I write to urge you to reconsider JPM’s actions related to capital regulation. For the overall economy, as well as for JPM, these actions are misguided.

NEW YORK, May 18 (Business Law Currents) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s trophy case gets a new addition with the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam, but shelf room is still available.

For all its publicity, the Rajaratnam case was merely one of many; since late 2009, insider trading probes related to Galleon have resulted in 13 additional guilty pleas. In recent months, some of the country’s most prestigious names have been linked to what appears to be a widening net of scandals. Fallout from these and others yet to be named should continue to generate headlines for the foreseeable future.

By Adam Samuel, Thomson Reuters Accelus contributor. The opinions expressed are his own.

LONDON, May 13 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – The British Bankers’ Association left it until the day before the last available one to appeal against its defeat in the Administrative Court, to throw in the towel in its payment protection insurance judicial review application.

Having lost on every point in front of Mr Justice Ouseley, the BBA’s undignified judicial review challenge to both the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service’s material on PPI complaint handling is over.

By leaving the decision so late, the BBA managed to embarrass the Royal Bank of Scotland board, which seemed to suggest the day before that Lloyds TSB’s decision not to back an appeal made no difference to its fellow government-owned competitor. It will have annoyed both regulator and ombudsman to have been left hanging on in this way.

By Susannah Hammond, Thomson Reuters’  regulatory intelligence team. The views expressed are her own

LONDON, May 9 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – The Financial Stability Board, regulatory policy maker of choice for the G20, has started to show its teeth. From its roots as the supranational setter of standards, guidance, policies and principles in the wake of the financial crisis, the FSB has started to clarify how it will monitor compliance with its requirements as well as deal forcefully with breaches.

A progress report on one of its strands of work regarding promoting global adherence to regulatory and supervisory standards on international cooperation and information exchange highlights how the FSB uses the International Monetary Fund as its objective reviewer of compliance with international standards. Critically, it shows how the FSB has taken the first steps in setting out the implications for what are called non-cooperative jurisdictions.

The FSB has noted that a small number of jurisdictions prioritised for evaluation have not, as at the end of April 2011, cooperated satisfactorily with the its process for promoting adherence to regulatory and supervisory standards on international cooperation and information exchange. It would appear that in those jurisdictions the authorities have, for whatever reason, chosen not to speak to the FSB.

The FSB says it will continue to pursue dialogue and has tried a variety of channels in an attempt to get the jurisdictions concerned to engage with the process. The FSB goes on to state that: “other measures may be implemented to apply additional pressure”. However, it does not say what those measures might be or how the pressure will be applied. The FSB will publish a list of non-cooperative jurisdictions if positive measures are not seen to be making sufficient progress. The use of such name-and-shame lists is deemed to have been effective at incentivising improvements in other areas such as tax standards.

The implication for the FSB’s ability and intent to apply pressure as well as to name and shame increases the focus for jurisdictions, authorities and firms on its other streams of work.

G20 RECOMMENDATIONS

By Erik Krusch

NEW YORK  (Business Law Currents) Inside information seems to be making its way out of the office and boardroom and onto the Street where it is parlayed into lucrative stock trades. From former hedge fund mogul Raj Rajaratnam to erstwhile Berkshire Hathaway executive and reputed Warren Buffett successor David Sokol, individuals alleged to have traded on inside information are sweating in the proverbial hot seat.

Rajaratnam’s alleged violation of insider trading laws and Sokol’s alleged violation of Berkshire policy, and possibly state and federal law, are helping to shape current market norms and the future behavior of investors in U.S. capital markets. These corporate dramas are unfolding before our very eyes and today’s events offer a possible window into what post-Sokol and Rajaratnam corporate policy and insider trading enforcement may look like.

By Brett Wolf

ST. LOUIS, May 4 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – To combat money laundering and contain the drug war raging along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. authorities are seeking technology that can detect the hoards of cash that smugglers try to spirit abroad.

But as results come in on initial development efforts, it is uncertain whether the technology is within reach.

“Right now we don’t know if it’s even feasible to make it work,” said John Verrico, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s and Technology Directorate. “There is a whole lot that has to be considered before we can say we have viable technology.”

The 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy, produced by the Departments of Treasury, Justice, and Homeland Security, stated that the smuggling of bulk currency out of the United States is “the largest and most significant drug money laundering threat facing law enforcement.”

To counter the threat, DHS would invest in research and development of “non-intrusive bulk currency detection technology,” the document said.

The DHS Science and Technology Directorate last year solicited firms to build “a device that will search for and identify bulk quantities of currency – secreted on persons, in hand baggage and luggage, and/or in privately owned vehicles.”   The solicitation specified that the device must be able to screen a walking person with luggage and slowly-driven vehicles in an inspection area.

Nov 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission faces the mammoth task of writing detailed regulations to implement reforms passed by Congress giving the agency oversight of the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.

Working from a list of 30 topic areas, the agency may end up writing 50 to 60 regulations, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler has said.

The CFTC hopes to unveil the first drafts of most of the proposed rules by the end of the year to allow time for public comment and revisions before its July deadline for final regulations. Some rules have earlier deadlines.

Regulators have held hundreds of meetings with industry players as they consider the details. For a full list of meetings, see: http://r.reuters.com/hum65p

Below is a list of rule-making areas for the CFTC: