JunHe recently assisted a large state-owned engineering company in China (the “Company”) that is a leader in the international engineering field. In 2017, the Company was deemed by The World Bank (“WB”) to have committed fraud due to misrepresentations by its consortium partners in its bidding for a World Bank funded infrastructure project, which resulted in WB investigations and sanctions on the Company.
JunHe provided a full range of legal services to the Company, including assisting the Company in responding to WB’s investigations, negotiating the settlement agreement, and establishing and maintaining a compliance management system. JunHe communicated and negotiated with WB, assisted the Company in cooperating with WB’s investigations, and endeavored to obtain mitigating sanctions for the Company. This involved negotiating with WB for settlement and collecting evidence to prove the existence of mitigating circumstances. With JunHe’s assistance, the Company finally reached a settlement arrangement with WB, which imposed continuing sanctions of more than a year and without any additional conditions or any restrictions on the bidding qualification.
In accordance with the Settlement Agreement and WB’s Integrity Compliance Guidelines, JunHe assisted the Company in establishing a compliance management system in compliance with WB’s standards based on a detailed compliance risk assessment and considering the Company’s business management structure and business scope. JunHe held several special compliance training sessions for the Company, focusing on the key areas of the new compliance system. The topics in the training sessions included the interpretation of WB’s compliance policies, the interpretation of the compliance management system, some of the key concerns for the implementation of the compliance management system and the identification of compliance risk signals. JunHe provided specific advice on the implementation and improvement of the Company’s compliance management system, helped employees in different departments of the Company enhance their understanding and recognition of the compliance management rules, and facilitated the internal implementation of the compliance management system in the Company. This led to the advancement of the compliance culture within the client’s group.
During the compliance rectification, JunHe assisted the Company in cooperating with inspections by the independent compliance experts appointed by WB and assisted the Company in effectively preparing responses to multiple rounds of questions raised by the independent compliance experts. In the on-site compliance inspections conducted by the independent compliance expert team in accordance with the Settlement Agreement, JunHe advised the Company to provide hundreds of compliance management documents to the team from the compliance supervisor and assisted the Company’s employees with the interviews conducted by the team. All these actions demonstrated that the Company had made outstanding progress in the development of its compliance system in a very short period, which made the Company’s rectification of its compliance system highly appreciated by the independent compliance experts and WB’s Compliance Office.
Despite the effect of the global outbreak of COVID-19, JunHe helped sweep away the obstacles to the rectification of the Company’s compliance management system and facilitated the development of the Company’s compliance management system. Finally, a positive result was achieved, and the Company was able to carry out all the work to lift the imposed sanctions. These sanctions were successfully and promptly lifted.
The Compliance Office of WB highly affirmed the achievement of the Company’s compliance reforms and commented that the Company had fully met the conditions for the release of sanctions as set out in the Settlement Agreement. It highly praised the Company as a model for other similar enterprises and remarked that the Company’s experience in various aspects of compliance reform will greatly benefit Chinese enterprises.
JunHe displayed an efficient, diligent and meticulous attitude. They controlled the project’s risks and maintained effective communication with WB and the team of independent compliance experts. This fully reflects the professionalism and project management ability of JunHe’s lawyers, which have been highly recognized and praised by the client.
JunHe has gained rich experience and outstanding results in assisting Chinese companies in responding to compliance investigations and sanctions imposed by multilateral development banks to make rectifications and it has gained deep trust from many Chinese companies. This project is another important achievement for JunHe. It fully reflects the unique advantages JunHe has as a local Chinese law firm in this field and further strengthens JunHe’s position as a market leader in assisting Chinese companies in developing their compliance systems and responding to investigations and regulations made by multilateral development banks such as WB, ADB and AfDB in the new domestic and international environment.
Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP was the law firm in cooperation with JunHe for this project.