My old adage – when it comes to enforcement initiatives, the government always tells you what they are going to do and then they do it. It is always baffles me when targets of enforcement actions complain that they did not know the government was going to launch an investigation or enforce the law in a particular manner. The Justice Department is fairly transparent in...
The Delaware Chancery Court is continuing its trend of permitting Caremark claims against corporate board members who fail to exercise proper oversight and monitoring of compliance programs. The Delaware Court’s latest decision involving the Boeing board and its failure to conduct proper oversight of the 737 MAX safety scandal is yet another example. At bottom, the Chancery Court is raising the stakes on board member...
Mark Forkner, a former Chief Technical Pilot, was indicted on two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate commerce and four counts of wire fraud. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count of wire fraud and 10 years in prison on each count of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate commerce. Boeing began to develop the...
The Justice Department announced the indictment of Mark Forkner, a former Chief Technical Pilot for Boeing for his role in the 737 MAX scandal. Specifically, Forkner is charged with deceiving the FAA’s Aircraft Evaluation Group (“FAA AEG”) relating to Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane and defrauding Boeings U.S.-based airline customers to earn millions of dollars for Boeing. Boeing’s 737 MAX scandal is tragic and disturbing. In...
The new Anti-Money Laundering laws and regulations continue to roll out with new risks, liabilities and compliance requirements. There is a coming AML enforcement storm, fueled by a new AML whistleblower program that will operate in a manner similar to the SEC’s successful whistleblower program. The AML Act of 2020 increased penalties for AML offenses, adopted investigative improvements to expand the reach of AML investigations...
If you follow my blog, you know that I am passionate about the compliance profession. Chief compliance officers have unique talents, expertise and leadership qualities. CCOs are committed ethics warriors. No one else can claim that same mission. CCOs are the natural stewards of a company’s ethical culture. Of course, a company can appoint a separate chief ethics officer to distinguish between the ethics and...
David Friedman, an expert in workforce culture, joins us for a guest posting on the impact of the pandemic and workforce culture. David can be reached at www.culturewise.com. David is the author of Culture by Design: How to Build a High-Performing Culture Even in the New Remote Work Environment. As many workers flee their current jobs, burnout and lack of growth opportunities are being cited as...
Third-party risk management is a favorite topic for compliance professionals. And for good reason. Third parties create significant risks. To state the obvious, companies have less control over third parties than employees. But for many reasons companies engage third parties as a more effective solution than hiring employees. In this situation, risk multiplies exponentially. The third-party risk issue, however, has multiplied exponentially for a number...
This has been an interesting enforcement year. The Biden Administration promised a renewal of aggressive enforcement. The difficult transition from the last administration and political resistance to confirmation of political appointees has delayed the transition process. Consequently, enforcement has gotten off to a slow start. But companies would make a big mistake in embracing complacency or just waiting for enforcement to pick up before elevating...
The healthcare industry faces cascading risks – one risk flows to another with compounding financial results. Three generic drug companies just experienced this cascading liability. As part of the Justice Department Antitrust Division’s investigation of the generic drug industry, Taro, Sandoz and Apotex settled criminal antitrust cases by entering into a deferred prosecution agreement, paying a financial settlement and agreeing to cooperate with the ongoing...
Board and Fraud – a Jonathan T. Marks Blog
