Episode 383 -- FCPA Update: Declination and Indictment
Daily Compliance News: August 19, 2025, The AI Winter Edition
Daily Compliance News: August 18, 2025, The All Corruption Edition
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending August 16, 2025
Daily Compliance News: August 14, 2025 The End of Dial Up Edition
Daily Compliance News: August 12, 2025, The ABC Angle Edition
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending, August 2, 2025
Daily Compliance News: July 31, 2025. The Forgotten Generation Edition
Daily Compliance News: July 28, 2025, The Where is Grasshopper when you need him Edition
2 Gurus Talk Compliance: Episode 55 – The From Worse to Worser Edition
Sittenfeld v. United States – Campaign Contributions as Crimes?
Daily Compliance News: July 14, 2025, The Secret Business Sauce-Reading Edition
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending, July 12, 2025
FCPA Compliance Report: Stay the Course: Ellen Lafferty on Navigating Anti-Corruption Compliance in 2025
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending June 28, 2025
Episode 374 -- Justice Department Resumes FCPA Enforcement with New, Focused Guidance
Compliance Tip of the Day: New FCPA Enforcement Memo - What Does it Say?
As in every year, in 2024 the grinches of law enforcement brought financial and corporal misery to bad guys in energy. Here is a review of the crimes of only a few of the convicted, admitted and alleged bribsters, swindlers...more
Designed for busy in-house counsel, compliance professionals, and anti-corruption lawyers, this newsletter summarizes some of the most important international anti-corruption law and enforcement developments from the past...more
The energy industry in general and the oil and gas industry in particular has been the target of at least 50 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecutions over the years—more than any other industry. Most of the cases...more
Trafigura’s bribery scheme resembles the same schemes implemented by its significant competitors — Vitol, Glencore, Gunvor. At the core of the conduct, Petrobras and Brazilian government officials collected bribes in...more
We conclude our exploration of the resolution of the FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm G Trafigura Beheer B.V. (Trafigura), an international commodity trading company with its primary operations in...more
We continue our exploration of the resolution of the FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm trading firm G Trafigura Beheer B.V. (Trafigura), an international commodity trading company with its primary...more
We continue our exploration of the resolution of the FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm G Trafigura Beheer B.V. (Trafigura), an international commodity trading company with its primary operations in...more
Gunvor’s bribery scheme is not very surprising nor ingenious. After all, a number of energy trading companies have been prosecuted for bribery over the years, including Glencore, Vitol, Freepoint. Numerous individuals have...more
We continue our exploration of the resolution of the FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm Gunvor S.A. The enforcement action came in with a $661 million penalty against the company, which has pleaded...more
In March 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the resolution of a FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm Gunvor S.A. The enforcement action comes in with a $661 million penalty against the...more
Following an 8 week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn has convicted Javier Aguilar on charges relating to the former Vitol trader’s violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He faces up to 30 years in prison. Aguilar...more
Last week, Albemarle Corporation (Albemarle), agreed to pay more than $218 million to resolve investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into violations of the...more
The Albemarle FCPA enforcement action was announced at a good time. This year has been a slow year for DOJ’s FCPA enforcement program, although there are several months before the end of the year. The SEC, on the other hand,...more
Albemarle’s bribery schemes look and sound like text-book examples of third-party agents being paid high commissions as a way to funnel bribery payments to foreign officials at state-owned oil refineries. However, as usual,...more
Albemarle Corporation (Albemarle), a specialty chemicals manufacturing company located in Charlotte, North Carolina, agreed to pay more than $218 million to settle FCPA investigations with DOJ and the SEC stemming from...more
Franks International (“Frank’s”) settled FCPA charges with the SEC for $8 million stemming from operations in Angola during the period 2008 to 2014. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Frank’s for the same events....more
With it being Lent and all, we ask, are this year’s Ferrymen of the River Styx using these 40 days to turn from wickedness and find their way to repentence? Who knows, but we do know that as alternative energy rises, so do...more
In its first enforcement action of 2023, the Justice Department charged a Connecticut man and a foreign national with FCPA bribery and money laundering charges stemming from a bribery scheme to secure contracts with Petrobras...more
Among the risks inherent in a merger or an acquisition, few bring the financial and reputational consequences of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Background - The FCPA prohibits the offer, promise,...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, under a reconstituted Commission, is signaling a new era of aggressive enforcement of the Commodity Exchange Act. Significant Violations and Penalties - United States- On...more
Glencore, a giant in the commodities and mining scenes, will pay $1.1 billion “to settle charges that two of its units bribed officials in several countries and manipulated oil prices,” a deal that follows “months of...more
Like wild mushrooms after a warm summer rain, and undaunted by the COVIDs, the fraudsters, the grifters, and the “the spawn of the Devil’s own strumpet”* were prolific before meeting the wrath of the courts and the regulators...more