Joohyun Bahn, a/k/a Dennis Bahn, a citizen of South Korea and a U.S. permanent resident, worked as a commercial real estate broker at the New York offices of Colliers International Group Inc., a Canadian real estate brokerage firm, from March 2014 to May 2015. Colliers was spun off from FirstService Corporation in June 2015. Both FirstService and post-spin off Colliers were issuers.
According to the documents in the case, between March 2013 and May 2015, Bahn attempted to bribe a foreign official who worked for the soverign wealth fund of an undisclosed country in the Middle East in connection with his efforts to broker the sale of an $800 million highrise commercial building in Vietnam, known as Landmark 72. An accomplice of Bahn told him that the foreign official could influence the wealth fund to purchase the building. At the initial price of $700 million, the bribe was to be $250,000 up front and a further $750,000 upon closing. Bahn countered with a bribe of $500,000 up front and $2 million upon closing if the building could be sold for $800 million. Bahn's accomplice said that the foreign official agreed to that. In fact, the foreign official was unaware of the offered bribe. In an effort to obtain money for himself, an accomplice had misrepresented the official’s involvement in the scheme to Bahn, and the accomplice subsequently kept the initial $500,000 payment for himself. By mid-May, 2015, Bahn contacted the foreign official to inquire about when the deal would close, since he had already been given the initial $500,000. The foreign official did not respond, instead forwarding the message to the wealth fund's Chief Compliance Officer. Shortly thereafter, the wealth fund issued a cease and desist letter to Colliers indicating that it had never attempted to buy Landmark 72. Colliers fired Bahn the next day.
In a settled administrative proceeding initiated on August 6, 2018, the SEC issued a cease and desist order to Bahn. Under the terms of the settlement, the SEC ordered Bahn to cease and desist violations of the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the FCPA and further ordered Bahn to disgorge $225,000. Payment of the disgorgement would be deemed satisfied by the restitution or forfeiture ordered in the parallel criminal proceeding brought by the DOJ.
