Barclays joined the club of global financial institutions settling FCPA violations for hiring of relatives of foreign officials in Asia.  Barclays agreed to disgorge $3.8 million and paid prejudgment interest of nearly $1 million and a $1.5 million civil penalty. As outlined in the SEC settlement order (here), Barclays Asia Pacific Region hired 117 job candidates referred by or connected to foreign government officials or...

In an interesting SEC FCPA settlement action, Sridhar Thiruvengadam, the former COO of Cognizant Technology, agreed to pay a $50K penalty for his role in the bribery scheme involving the payment of $2 million to a government official in India in exchange for the issuance of a planning permit needed for the construction of Cognizant’s new office location in Chennai, India.  Early this year, Cognizant...

Last week, British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB), located in the United Kingdom, agreed to settle an OFAC enforcement action for $4 million.  (Here and Here).  BACB has no presence in the United States but was cited for processing 72 transactions in violation of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations. In reaching the settlement, OFAC reduced significantly the penalty amount of approximately $228 million under OFAC Enforcement Guidelines...

Corporate boards all want to believe that their companies maintain an ethical culture.  Each board members knows the right words, platitudes and buzz words to use.  No one can fault them there.  But like every issue in life, when push comes to shove, what actual commitment of time and effort do board members actually devote to the specific issue?  And if they do commit to...

I always loved Tarzan movies, especially the movies starring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan.  (Here is a sample).  Tarzan always had a nice house, a great tree house with vines swings for diving and jumping into the water. In the 1990s, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame correctly predicted that computing power and capabilities would eventually move from the desktop to the Internet.  In essence, Gates was...

I guarantee you if you ask your corporate board to define “ethical culture” and “compliance,” and their actual day-to-day responsibilities in this area, you will quickly realize most board members have no clue.  This is not a controversial statement because corporate board members, for the most part, are clinging to old ways when it comes to board responsibilities – focus on the financials, monitor your...

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  Mark Twain Frankly, I have to admit my reaction to the recent Business Roundtable’s issuance of a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which was signed by 181 CEOs who committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers,...

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 systems.  This digital fact of life creates a real cyber risk for illegal intrusions.  Over half of all cyber-attacks are the direct or indirect result of third party access.  Third-party...