A&O Shearman FCPA Digest | Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Holdings Ltd. (2022)<br />

Source Documents

Nature of Business
Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Holdings Ltd. (“JLT”) was a British multinational insurance and reinsurance corporation, headquartered in London. In 2019, JLT was acquired by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., a global professional services firm headquartered in New York.

Influence to be Obtained
According to the DOJ’s Declination Letter, between 2014 and 2016, JLT paid approximately $10,800,000 to a Florida-based intermediary, which was in part used to pay approximately $3,157,000 in bribes to Ecuadorian government officials to obtain and retain contracts with Seguros Sucre, an Ecuadorian state-owned surety company. The Declination Letter asserts that approximately $1.2 million of these bribe payments were laundered through bank accounts in the US.

Enforcement
On March 18, 2022, the DOJ announced that it had declined to prosecute JLT for violations of the FCPA, despite reaching a conclusion that bribery had been committed by company employees and agents. Pursuant to the letter agreement, JLT agreed to future cooperation and disgorgement of $29,081,951, representing JLT’s profit from the corruptly obtained and retained contracts in Ecuador. The DOJ agreed to credit the disgorgement amount against JLT’s payment to the U.K. Serious Fraud Office.

The DOJ declined to prosecute based on an assessment of the factors set forth in the Corporate Enforcement Policy, JM 9-47.120, and the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations, JM 9-28.300. The DOJ considered factors such as (1) JLT’s voluntary self-disclosure of its misconduct; (2) the company’s proactive cooperation and its agreement to continue cooperating with the DOJ; (3) the nature and seriousness of the offense; (4) JLT’s timely and full remediation and enhancement of its anti-corruption compliance program; and (5) JLT’s agreement to disgorge the full amount of ill-gotten gains.