Medical Device Legal News with Sam Bernstein: Episode 14
The Justice Insiders: FIFA Corruption Trial – Will the Feds Score Another Goal?
Rob DeConti on the Latest Guidance and Insights from the OIG at HHS
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
President Trump Puts a “Pause” on FCPA Enforcement - On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) pausing the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). According to the EO, the pause will...more
The Justice Department announced the arrest and indictment of Charles Hunter Hobson for violating the FCPA, money laundering and receiving kickbacks arising from a bribery scheme to pay government officials in Egypt in...more
On February 24, 2021, DOJ’s Criminal Division Fraud Section published its annual year-end summary. The Fraud Section focuses on prosecuting white-collar crime. The report summarizes enforcement activity in the past year and...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this month that it obtained over $3 billion in settlements and judgments from civil fraud and false claims cases during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019 (FY 2019). Of this...more
To our bad guys, 2019 was a year flush with hope and opportunity; it ended with recidivism, more misery from Venezuela, a charlatan, an Okie who pulled a multi-million dollar fast-one on Chesapeake and, as in years past, a...more
Last Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) secured another trial court conviction in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecution involving an individual. Following on the heels of the Hoskins guilty verdict, it...more
This week I have been considering the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, as was laid out in their Information. Most...more
This week I am mining the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, for what they might mean for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...more
Last week, a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted two former Venezuelan officials, charging them with seven counts of money laundering and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. The charges relate to...more
After a sidetrack into the ethical train wreck detailed by the SEC Cease and Desist Order re: KPMG yesterday, I am returning to the blog post series I am running based upon the New York Times (NYT) reporting by Alexandra...more
In a May 17, 2019 press report that has been widely distributed in Brazil and the United States, Brazilian Federal Prosecutor Marisa Ferrari confirmed that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department...more
On October 30, 2018, Skadden hosted its Eighth Annual Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Enforcement and Litigation Seminar in New York City, which focused on U.S. enforcement issues faced by companies throughout the industry....more
In a three-count Indictment, another Goldman Sachs employee, Roger Ng, was charged with conspiracy to violate the FCPA and money-laundering. Ng was arrested in Singapore and will presumably be transported to the US to stand...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
Well, add another pharmaceutical company to the FCPA healthcare “sweep.” Frankly, the term “sweep” makes it sound like a coordinated enforcement effort – instead, it is more accurate to think of it as multiple prosecutions...more
The Justice Department added to its roster of criminal FCPA defendants. Going back to 2017, it is clear that the Yates Memorandum requirements have resulted in an increase in criminal FCPA prosecutions....more
The Department of Justice finished 2017 with two significant FCPA enforcement actions, and fittingly, one was a corporate settlement and another was an individual criminal guilty plea. The Justice Department’s final FCPA...more
You know this has been a big year in FCPA enforcement when DOJ and the SEC announce two FCPA settlements during the usually sleepy week between Christmas and New Years. And what a year it has been – more to follow in my...more
I am back from a two-week summer study program at Oxford, run by Michigan State University through its Odyssey to Oxford program. It was a great experience. My class was on The Tudors in film and print so not only did I...more
Last week, the SEC added another pharmaceutical company to its list of FCPA violators when AstraZeneca agreed to a $5.5 million settlement with the SEC. AZ is now the 25th drug or medical device company to pay an FCPA penalty...more
Yesterday, I used a quotation from the Oscar winning animator, Chuck Jones who described two of his well-known creations, Roadrunner and Wily E. Coyote, by referring to philosopher George Santayana’s description of fanaticism...more
The philosopher George Santayana is usually best remembered for the pithy saying, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santayana was an essayist, poet, professor and novelist. According to...more
In the wreckage of a corporate FCPA enforcement action, a company has to answer two important questions. First, how did the conduct occur without senior executives and the Board learning or suspecting that such conduct...more
On Aug. 12, 2015, Vincente Garcia (former head of Latin American sales for SAP International Inc.) pled guilty in federal court in San Francisco to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In addition to pleading...more