In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below some of the most important international anti-corruption developments in the past month with links to primary resources. October saw another SEC-only corporate FCPA settlement, an explanation from DOJ as to why the apparent decrease in volume of FCPA criminal actions does not mean anti-corruption is no longer an enforcement priority, an important ruling in an FCPA whistleblower case, and a variety of other anti-corruption developments in the U.S. and abroad. Here is our October 2015 Top Ten list:

1. SEC Reaches $14 Million Settlement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Relating to Alleged Failures to Maintain Effective Controls Over Chinese Joint Venture.

On October 5, 2015, the SEC announced that it had reached an agreement with U.S. pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) to settle alleged FCPA accounting violations related to BMS’s majority-owned joint venture in China (BMS China). According to SEC’s administrative Cease and Desist Order (Order), employees of BMS China improperly provided “corrupt inducements” to health care providers at state-owned and state-controlled hospitals in the form of cash payments, gifts, travel, entertainment and conference sponsorships and falsely recorded them as legitimate business expenses. The Order cited a number of alleged compliance failures at BMS China that were allegedly brought to BMS’s attention but not properly addressed, in part because BMS allegedly lacked sufficient compliance resources on the ground in China. The Order requires BMS to pay disgorgement and a civil penalty totaling $14 million and to self-report on its compliance upgrades for a two-year period. Notably absent from the Order were any allegations concerning BMS’s operations in Germany, which the SEC began investigating as early as 2006 after a local German prosecutor launched a probe into BMS’s activities there. BMS disclosed in its latest 10-Q that DOJ had completed its own investigation without taking any action, making this the ninth SEC-only FCPA corporate resolution so far in 2015—a phenomenon we’re calling the “Great Divide.”