Companies face new challenges in employee relations and promoting employee engagement in the COVID-19 pandemic era. Companies have to ensure employee a safe workplace with appropriate modifications to mitigate COVID-19...more
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the SEC is continuing its FCPA enforcement activities. The SEC lawyers and staff have brought two cases recently – an enforcement action against a former Goldman Sachs executive and the...more
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed charges against Asante Berko, a former Goldman Sachs executive with bribery of foreign government officials in Ghana. Goldman Sachs discovered and stopped the...more
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the SEC entered into a settlement with Eni for $24.5 million for FCPA violations. In another matter, the SEC filed an FCPA case against a former Goldman Sachs executive for bribery in...more
The Justice Department and the FBI have quickly acted to focus on fraudsters and hoarders who are preying on the public panic in response to the pandemic. DOJ has focused on new fraud schemes promising miracle cures and other...more
In a comprehensive enforcement action, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) announced a $17.5 million settlement with former Wells Fargo Bank CEO John Stumpf for his role in the sales practices misconduct scandal....more
Happy New Year!!
In the FCPA arena, 2019 was a record year – in enforcement and compliance.
Many continuing trends are becoming more than trends – meaning they are turning into established practices....more
1/7/2020
/ Anti-Corruption ,
Bribery ,
Compliance ,
Compliance Management Systems ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Declination ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Ericsson ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Fresenius ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Indictments ,
Leniency Programs ,
Microsoft ,
Money Laundering ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular ,
Retailers ,
Samsung ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Settlement Negotiations ,
Telecommunications ,
Transparency ,
Wal-Mart ,
White Collar Crimes ,
Wiretapping
The Justice Department and the SEC had a record year in FCPA enforcement — the largest amount of penalties against corporate defendants and the most individuals charged in one year. DOJ also adopted new guidance on corporate...more
Even the mighty can fall – Apple agreed to pay OFAC $467k for violations of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions regulations.
In 2008, Apple entered into an applications development agreement with SIS, a Slovenian...more
12/3/2019
/ Anti-Corruption ,
App Store ,
Apple ,
Compliance Management Systems ,
Corruption ,
Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act ,
Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions ,
Internal Controls ,
Mobile Apps ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Sanction Violations ,
Screening Procedures ,
Slovenia ,
Software ,
Transfer of Assets ,
White Collar Crimes
The Justice Department and the SEC have launched criminal and civil accounting fraud investigations against Under Armour. The sportswear maker has been suffering a rapid revenue decline over the last few years....more
11/12/2019
/ Accounting Fraud ,
Books & Records ,
Corporate Culture ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fashion Industry ,
Popular ,
Quarterly Report ,
Reputation Management ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
White Collar Crimes
Just to repeat myself – pharmaceutical and medical device firms face extraordinary risks of enforcement under the False Claims Act. While everyone likes to write and focus on FCPA or anti-corruption risks for global drug and...more
10/23/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Compliance ,
Cooperation ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Integrity Agreement ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Deferred Prosecution Agreements ,
Dementia ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Fraudulent Marketing ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Internal Controls ,
Kickbacks ,
Long Term Care Facilities ,
Medical Devices ,
OIG ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Physicians ,
Popular ,
Prescription Drug Coverage ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Qui Tam ,
Whistleblowers ,
White Collar Crimes
Capital One suffered a serious data breach as a result of the actions of one individual who downloaded nearly 30 GB of 100 million Capital One Financial Corporation credit applications from an Amazon cloud data server. The...more
We all know that businesses rely on a large number of third-party vendors to support their business operations. Many of these third parties require access to a company’s data and its internal information and technology...more
9/11/2019
/ Class Action ,
Compliance ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cyber Crimes ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Loss Prevention ,
Data Protection ,
Hackers ,
Incident Response Plans ,
Insurance Claims ,
Internal Controls ,
Popular ,
Public Relations ,
Risk Assessment ,
Risk Management ,
Third-Party Service Provider
Not to say, I told you so, but around the same time that the Capital One data breach occurred, I was reminding clients that nearly half of all significant data breaches or cyber-incidents occur because of internal actors. ...more
9/10/2019
/ Amazon Marketplace ,
Capital One ,
Cloud Computing ,
Compliance ,
Credit Cards ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Data Breach ,
Data Security ,
Data Theft ,
FBI ,
Financial Services Industry ,
GitHub ,
Identity Theft ,
Internal Controls ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Risk Management ,
Risk Mitigation ,
Slack ,
Third-Party Service Provider ,
Vendors
Most compliance officers will admit that they have more than enough responsibilities in their purview. They are usually not looking for more. I have some bad or good news on this front depending on your perspective....more
Matt Stankiewicz, Senior Associate at the Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for an interesting posting on Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans.
It was inevitable. With the continuing growth of the cryptocurrency industry, major...more
On the heels of the Justice Department’s announcement of its new compliance guidance, on May 2, 2019, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) issued its promised guidance for sanctions compliance...more
In a major development in ethics and compliance program expectations, the Justice Department has issued a new and important revised guidance on the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs. The new Evaluation Guidance...more
In a significant False Claims Act enforcement action, DOJ announced settlements with three pharmaceutical companies – Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Lundbeck, and Alexion Pharmaceuticals – under which they agreed to pay $122 million...more
4/11/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Co-payments ,
Compliance ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Healthcare ,
Jazz Pharmaceuticals ,
Medicare ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular ,
White Collar Crimes
Fresenius Medical came close to earning a declination under the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy. Unfortunately, Fresenius’ effort fell short — but it came close. Fresenius Medical operates more than 3700 dialysis clinics...more
4/3/2019
/ Bribery ,
Corruption ,
Distributors ,
FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy (CEP) ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Fresenius ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular ,
Third-Party Relationships ,
Third-Party Risk ,
White Collar Crimes
On December 19, 2018, the SEC announced settlements with two former senior executives of Panasonic Avionics Corporation.
In April 2018, Panasonic Avionics settled FCPA charges with the Justice Department and the SEC and...more
1/11/2019
/ Bribery ,
Compliance ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Internal Controls ,
Panasonic ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Settlement ,
White Collar Crimes
Companies have to focus on compliance controls and non-material financial transactions to prevent fraud, bribery and other misuse of corporate funds. One particular risky area is the control of gifts, meals, entertainment,...more
Société Générale (“SocGen”) entered into two deferred prosecution agreements (“DPA”) and agreed to pay $1.34 billion in penalties: $717 million to the Justice Department...more
As Goldman Sachs continues to navigate its way through the 1MDB investigation and prosecution, there is no question that the media is beginning to focus on who at Goldman Sachs knew about the bribery activity (or should have...more
The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal (“1MDB scandal”) has been making headlines for the past few years. The turning point for US prosecutors was the cooperation of Malaysian law enforcement and the corruption allegations...more
11/6/2018
/ Accounting Controls ,
Bonds ,
Bribery ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Indictments ,
Internal Controls ,
Investment Funds ,
Kickbacks ,
Money Laundering ,
Popular ,
White Collar Crimes