To forgive and forget. Or something like that.

In May 2004, Lucent was hit with a $25 million penalty for improperly inflating revenue by more than $1 billion. Ten individuals were also charged with reckless and fraudulent actions; their conflicts of interests prompted them to present improper financial reporting. Their actions included post-dating of documents and side-letter arrangements with third parties. Pretty damning stuff.

Three and a half years later, the firm is nailed by the SEC once again, even though it's now part of Alcatel. This time:

"...from at least 2000 to 2003, Lucent spent over $10,000,000 for approximately 1,000 Chinese foreign officials, who were employees of Chinese state-owned or state-controlled telecommunications enterprises, to travel to the United States and elsewhere. The Commission alleges that the majority of the trips were ostensibly designed to allow the Chinese foreign officials to inspect Lucent's factories and to train the officials in using Lucent equipment. In fact, according to the complaint, during many of these trips, the officials spent little or no time in the United States visiting Lucent's facilities. Instead, they visited tourist destinations throughout the United States, such as Hawaii, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Disney World, Universal Studios, and New York City... "

Having once demonstrated a lack of respect for the books-and-records and internal control provisions of federal securities laws, you might expect that the SEC would wallop Lucent for a second offense. Not so. Even though this escapade  involved "improperly recording the payments for approximately 315 trips for Chinese government officials that had a disproportionate amount of sightseeing, entertainment and leisure" - a pretty clear violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 - no individuals who arranged such trips were charged by the Commission. The penalty: a civil fine of $1.5 million, plus a fine under a non-prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice. The total bill for the second offense is only 10% of the first offense.

In other words, repeat offenders get treated better the next time they offend. A frequent offender discount, or maybe the SEC was just moved by the spirit of the season.