Month in a Minute: March and April 2025

Hughes Hubbard’s anti-corruption “Month in a Minute” offers a quick look-back at the biggest foreign corruption-related developments from the prior month. The Month in a Minute is intended to provide a quick snapshot of the latest news and developments. We hope you find it a useful and perhaps even enjoyable resource.

Highlights from March and April include developments in the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s plans for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement the termination of Glencore’s monitorships, a dismissal for Cognizant executives and several decisions on pending FCPA cases.

SEC To Follow U.S. Department of Justice on FCPA Enforcement

On March 5, Antonia Apps, acting deputy director of the SECs enforcement division, speaking at the 40th White Collar Crime Institute, said the SEC would “follow the lead of the DOJ” when it comes to FCPA enforcement. Apps also stated that the SEC would increasingly decline to bring cases against companies that cooperate with investigations and remediate misconduct. Apps’ statements come after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February effectively freezing FCPA enforcement actions and investigations for at least 180 days. For more information on the executive order, check out our February 2025 Month in a Minute.

Glencore Released From Monitorships

On March 19, the DOJ released Glencore International AG (Glencore International) and Glencore Ltd (together, Glencore) — both part of a Swiss commodities trading and mining firm — from their three-year compliance monitorships, terminating the monitorships 15 months early.

Glencore International pleaded guilty in May 2022 to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and admitted that between 2007 and 2018 it used intermediaries to pay more than $100 million to officials at state-owned mining and oil companies in at least eight countries across Africa and South America in order to obtain government contracts, avoid audits and skirt lawsuits. Glencore International agreed to pay a $428 5 million criminal penalty, disgorge $272 million and submit to a three-year monitorship. The same day, Glencore Ltd. pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in commodity price manipulation for its role in manipulating benchmark oil prices between 2011 and 2019. As part of this resolution, Glencore Ltd. agreed to pay a $341 million criminal penalty, forfeit $144 million and undergo a three-year monitorship.

On March 19, after examining the “facts and circumstances” of the case, the government filed a notice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut exercising “its sole discretion” to terminate the three- year monitorship against Glencore Ltd. The government also submitted a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to release Glencore International from its three-year monitorship, which the court granted on March 20.

Cognizant Executives Get Dismissal

On April 3, Judge Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the government’s motion to dismiss with prejudice the criminal case against Cognizant’s former president Gordon Coburn and former chief legal officer Steven Schwartz. The two men were charged with FCPA violations for allegedly authorizing the payment of bribes to an official in India to obtain a construction planning permit.

The dismissal comes after Judge Farbiarz postponed the trial until April 7 to give the government time to review the case in light of President Trump’s Feb 10 executive order directing the review of all existing FCPA enforcement actions.

On April 2, the new U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, moved to dismiss the case against both defendants with prejudice “after consultation with the Attorney General.” For more information on the Cognizant trial, please see our February 2025 edition.

DOJ Moves Forward With Several FCPA Prosecutions

In April, the DOJ announced that it would proceed with several FCPA-related prosecutions. These announcements came after the DOJ took time to review FCPA enforcement actions pursuant to President Trump’s Feb 10 executive order.

Smartmatic

On April 9, prosecutors announced that they would proceed with the prosecution of two Smartmatic executives, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez and Jorge Miguel Vasquez, on FCPA and money laundering charges.

U.S. authorities allege that between 2015 and 2018, Pinate, Vasquez and their co-conspirators conspired to pay at least $1 million in bribes to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, the former chairman of COMELEC, to obtain and retain business related to providing voting machines and elections services for the 2016 Philippine elections.

Pinate and Vasquez were each charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and one count of violating the FCPA Pinate and Vasquez were also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.

Honduran National Police Bribery Scheme

On April 11, prosecutors filed a notice of authorization to proceed in the case against Carl Alan Zaglin, owner of a Georgia-based manufacturer of police uniforms and accessories: Aldo Nestor Marchena, a Florida resident; and Francisco Roberto Cosenza Centeno, the former executive director of the Comite Tecnico del Fideicomiso para la Administraci6n del Fondo de Protecci6n y Seguridad Poblacional (TASA), for FCPA and money laundering charges related to a scheme to pay bribes to government officials in Honduras.

Between 2015 and 2019, Zaglin and Marchena allegedly paid over $166,000 in bribes to Honduran government officials including Cosenza, in exchange for receiving more than $10 million in contracts with TASA, the Honduran government agency responsible for procuring goods for the Honduran National Police. Zaglin and Marchena allegedly used proceeds from the contracts to make bribe payments and, together with Cosenza, concealed the bribes by laundering the proceeds through bank accounts and shell companies.

In December 2023, Zaglin, Marchena and Cosenza were indicted in a five-count indictment. They face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each money laundering charge, 10 years in prison on the count of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property and five years in prison on each FCPA-related offense.

Prosecution of Charles Hobson

On April 11, prosecutors filed a notice of authorization to proceed in the case against Charles Hobson, a former Corsa Coal Corpo ration executive who allegedly received kickbacks and paid bribes to Egyptian government officials.

Between 2016 and 2020, Hobson allegedly paid officials at Al Nasr Company for Coke and Chemica ls, an Egyptian state-owned and state-controlled company, in exchange for obtaining $143 million in coal contracts for Corsa Coal. To carry out the scheme, Hobson allegedly paid commissions to an intermediary, a portion of which was used to bribe Al Nasr officials. Hobson also allegedly conspired to receive a portion of the commissions as kickbacks.

For his involvement in the scheme, Hobson was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, two counts of violating the FCPA, one count of conspiracy to launder money, two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Fact of the Month

Please leave a message after the beep ... On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the invention that would cement him in the history books-the telephone. Just three days later, on March 10, Bell and his assistant Thomas A Watson tested their invention in Boston. Standing in two different rooms (and out of earshot from one another), Bell used the telephone to transmit the message “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Watson promptly appeared at his side. This marked the first successful bidirectional transmission of clear speech using the device.