Source: http://burneylawfirm.com/blog/tag/corporate-crime/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 14:02:07+00:00

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White-collar prosecutors and defense attorneys have been keenly awaiting today’s decision in U.S. v. Ionia Management. At oral arguments last November, the court permitted amicus filer Andrew Weissmann (former head of the Enron Task Force) to make a case for limiting the criminal liability of corporations. The fact that he was given oral argument time meant that the court was at least considering the argument, hence the interest in today’s decision.
Weissman’s argument was that, although the doctrine of respondeat superior holds a corporation criminally liable for the acts of an employee, the corporation should not be liable if the employee acted contrary to the corporation’s policies.
The court went on to re-state that a corporation cannot be immunized from liability just by having a compliance program, no matter how extensive it may be. The existence of a compliance program would only be relevant to whether an employee was acting within the scope of his authority. But if employees are acting within the scope of their authority, and they break the law, then the corporation is going to be liable.
The court’s decision was a disappointment to many defense attorneys, who believe that the standard for criminal prosecution of corporations is too low. The ability to charge a corporation with a crime is a deadly weapon, as demonstrated by the downfall of Arthur Andersen in 2002. The ease of bringing such charges gives prosecutors a lot of leverage to demand full cooperation from the company when its employees are under investigation. The government can often stiff-arm corporations into making huge concessions, including stiff fines, to avoid prosecution.
But the decision was not exactly a surprise. During oral arguments, Judge Guido Calabresi questioned whether judges even could limit the existing scope of respondeat superior. It was an interesting academic issue, but Congress or perhaps the Supreme Court would have to deal with it.
It wouldn’t be very surprising to see this issue brought before the Supreme Court. Weissmann has been working on changing this bit of law since he left the government. At the heart of the problem, he says, is a misinterpretation of the Supreme Court case New York Central v. U.S., 212 U.S. 481 (1909). That case has been interpreted in such a way that criminal liability is easier to prove than civil liability under respondeat superior. That’s the opposite of how it usually works, of course.
Our prediction is that the Supreme Court won’t make the change, and it will be up to Congress to tighten up the doctrine. If at all. For the time being, nothing is changed.
Can Skilling Get a New Trial?
On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit ruled on Jeff Skilling’s appeal from his conviction in the Enron case, upholding the conviction, but sending the case back for re-sentencing. Skilling may be able to raise a Brady issue on remand, as well, so the case doesn’t seem to be over. The opinion is 106 pages long, so we will summarize the ruling and its meaning for you here.
Skilling challenged his conviction, on the grounds that the government’s theory of “honest services” fraud was wrong. The government’s case let the jury decide on three purposes of Skilling’s conspiracy, one of which was to deprive Enron of the honest services of its employees. Because the jury returned a general verdict, if any one of those legal theories was insufficient, then the verdict must be reversed.
Skilling focused on the honest services theory, arguing that it was insufficient because his actions were done to give Enron a higher stock price, so it was in the corporate interest. He didn’t act in secret, and wasn’t self-dealing.
In making this argument, Skilling relied on the Circuit’s previous Enron case, United States v. Brown, 459 F.3d 509. In that case, a loan secured by Nigerian barges was fraudulently booked as revenue. The defendants in that case were specifically ordered by their CFO, Andy Fastow, to carry out the deal. Not only did they believe that Enron had a corporate interest in the scheme, and was a willing beneficiary of it, but their superiors ordered and approved their actions. Furthermore, they were paid more depending on whether they successfully achieved the goal.
3) higher-level management authorizes or orders improper conduct in order to reach the goal.
Here, the first two conditions were met, but the third was not. Condition 1 was met when Enron created a goal of meeting Wall Street earnings projections. Condition 2 was met as Skilling got paid more if Enron met those projections. But condition 3 was not met, as there was no evidence that anyone besides Skilling authorized his conduct. The Board tacitly approved several of the underlying transactions, but never authorized him to engage in fraudulent conduct.
Because the third condition was not met, the Brown rule does not absolve Skilling of his liability. His conviction was therefore upheld.
With respect to sentencing, Skilling argued that the district court got the Guidelines calculation wrong, and that the sentence is unreasonable under §3553. The Court didn’t get to the §3553 issue, because it held that the Guidelines calculation was indeed incorrect, and a court has to do the Guidelines right before the §3553 factors come into play.
Skilling appealed a §3C1.1 two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice, and a §2F1.1(b)(8)(A) four-level enhancement for jeopardizing a financial institution.
The §3C1.1 enhancement was based on a determination that Skilling perjured himself as to his sale of Enron stock right after he resigned from the company. He’d tried to sell his stock while still CEO, but it would have had to be reported. So he resigned, then tried to sell his stock. But then September 11 happened, and he wasn’t able to sell until September 17. Skilling testified to the SEC that his order to sell on September 17 was due to his concerns over the market’s reaction to 9/11. The judge decided that was perjury.
On appeal, skilling didn’t argue that it wasn’t perjury. Instead, he argued that the court should have suppressed his SEC testimony in the first place, because the SEC misled him as to the fact that the investigation was criminal in nature.
The Circuit, however, pointed out that suppressible evidence can still be used at sentencing, and none of the exceptions to that rule apply here. The Court also found no justification for the original perjury. So the two-level enhancement was proper.
With respect to “pension funds,” the Guidelines don’t define the term. But a pension requires more than just employee investment for later payout — a pension has definitely determined payouts. Here, the retirement funds didn’t have specific benefits, they were just there as a pool for funding any benefits that might be given. So the Court decided they didn’t count.
With respect to the catch-all, apart from pension funds, the Guideline definition lists classic financial institutions like banks, investment houses, and the like. The Court did not want to expand the definition to declare every corporate retirement plan to be a financial institution.
Because the retirement plans weren’t financial institutions, the four-level enhancement was improper. So Skilling’s sentence was vacated, and the case was remanded for resentencing.
In addition to these main issues, the Court also rejected Skilling’s other challenges to his trial. Giving a “deliberate ignorance” instruction was at worst harmless error. None of the other jury instructions were problematic. The venue was proper. There was no prosecutorial misconduct.
Interestingly, however, the Court specifically stated that Skilling can raise Brady issues on remand. An FBI interview note showed that Andy Fastow didn’t think he had discussed a certain list with Skilling. This was omitted from the formal “302” report provided to the defense. Skilling claims that Fastow was talking about a list of talking points that Fastow had testified at trial he actually had discussed with Skilling.
Therefore, Skilling might be able to get a new trial! If Skilling can show that there was a Brady violation, this case could be far from over. The government claims that the list in question is unrelated to the case, however, so we’re just going to have to wait and see.

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