On July 17, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that Nordam Group, Inc., a privately held Oklahoma-based aircraft repair company, admitted that a subsidiary and an affiliate, with the approval of Nordam employees, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) by bribing employees of state-owned or -controlled airlines in China. The bribes totaled almost $1.5 million over nine years, securing nearly $2.5 million in profits. Nordam assented to a non-prosecution agreement, and will pay what the DOJ described as a discounted $2 million penalty—a relatively modest sum as FCPA penalties go.

The misconduct was not a novel fact pattern, and the terms of the non-prosecution agreement generally follow the norm, but one feature of the Nordam case is notable. Perhaps signaling the DOJ’s willingness, in certain circumstances, to set a penalty that will punish but not destroy, the DOJ noted that it set the penalty at $2 million because Nordam had demonstrated that a larger penalty would “substantially jeopardize” the company’s viability.

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