As noted here, the DOJ filed a lawsuit in January 2017, in which LVS was paying $7 million under a non-prosecution agreement. As pointed out in the previous article, this was a common development, given that FCPA enforcement actions against issuers involving DOJ and SEC components are almost always resolved on the same day. In addition to the plot, the complaint was launched in the final hours of the Obama administration, while LVS CEO Sheldon Adelson (a prominent Republican aide) was in Washington D.C for President Trump`s inauguration. Non-prosecution agreements have become an important instrument for U.S. prosecutions of corporate criminal misconduct. These agreements allow for criminal transactions that impose sanctions on the company without the need for a formal conviction or admission of guilt. In addition to imposing a fine, non-criminal agreements offer law enforcement authorities the additional flexibility to impose mandates on companies, reform their behaviour and improve their internal governance systems, and obtain significant cooperation from companies to support future prosecutions. In general, these compliance-based results are not available in conventional lawsuits. Under the non-prosecution agreement, Sands will pay a fine of $6.96 million, a 25 percent reduction in the current fine under U.S. criminal guidelines. The Division reached this resolution on the basis of a number of factors, including the nature and severity of the violations of internal controls and the fact that Sands cooperated fully with the investigation and fully remedied this situation. Sands` cooperation included conducting a thorough internal investigation and the voluntary collection, analysis and organization of evidence and comprehensive information for the government in response to requests, including the translation of important documents.
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson`s casino operator also struck a no-suit agreement on Thursday in which it admitted that executives knowingly failed to put in place accounting controls to ensure payments were legitimate and were duly recorded in its books and records. Sands has entered into a non-prosecution agreement and has agreed to continue to cooperate with the Division in the ongoing investigations and prosecutions of the conduct described in the Agreement, including individuals, in order to improve its compliance program and report to the Division on the implementation of its enhanced compliance program. . . .