Brian Klein Quoted by Law360 in Story about Cases to Watch in 2024

Law360 quoted Waymaker Partner Brian Klein speaking about the upcoming USA v. Gordon Coburn et al. trial in a story about New Jersey cases to watch in 2024. Klein said, “This is a high-profile prosecution of a CEO and chief legal officer. There aren’t a lot of Foreign Corrupt Practice Act trials out there.”

“Usually, the company takes a plea or enters into a non-prosecution agreement and individuals implicated in the bribery aren’t prosecuted, often because they are located abroad, making them difficult to arrest and extradite,” Klein said. “So this is a pretty unique situation that an FCPA trial of executives based in the U.S. is going to trial.”

In the 12-count indictment, Gordon Coburn, the former Cognizant chief executive, and Stephen Schwartz, the former chief legal officer, have been charged with approving a $2 million payment to an Indian Government official in exchange for a permit to speed up a construction project in Chennai, India that had been long delayed.