SEC Charges Real Estate Broker With FCPA Violations

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled FCPA charges against a New Jersey real estate broker arising out of his attempt to bribe a foreign official while acting as a broker for Colliers International Group, Inc. According to the SEC’s order, Joohyun Bahn attempted to bribe a foreign official of a country in the Middle East as part of an effort to broker the sale of Landmark 72, a high rise commercial building in Vietnam, on behalf of Colliers. The SEC’s order found that Bahn gave the bribe to an accomplice, expecting him to pass it along to the official. But the accomplice, who had misrepresented the official’s involvement in the scheme, kept the money for himself, and the official was unaware of the attempted bribe.