Noah Smith, an Associate at The Volkov Law Group, joins us for an interesting post on OFAC’s new Venezuela sanctions.  Noah can be contacted at [email protected]. Venezuela is undergoing a political upheaval. Since his rise to power in 2013, the embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has precipitated a humanitarian crisis that has driven some 3 million Venezuelans to flee abroad. Widespread protests have erupted (yet again) against the country’s chronic violence,...

Chief compliance officers at hospitals face a crushing burden of risks.  The HHS-OIG has vigorously scrutinized hospitals compensation of physicians, especially for potential anti-kickback and Stark law violations.  Most of these suspect situations involve compensation for physician practice groups.  Unlawful compensation and influence arrangements have involved favorable leasing and facility payments, such as below-market office leasing arrangements in exchange for exclusive referral of patients to...

Given the significant risks posed by transfers of money and other items of value to physicians, pharmaceutical and medical device companies have to implement appropriate controls governing such payments.  The federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”) prohibits the offering, paying, soliciting or receiving anything of value to induce or reward referrals or generate federal health care program business.  The statute defines “anything of value” broadly; criminal penalties...

The United States healthcare industry poses an infinite number of risks when it comes to interactions with healthcare professionals.  Given the aggressive regulation and enforcement of prohibitions against kickbacks and referrals, healthcare companies have to devote significant resources and strategies governing interactions with physicians. First, healthcare provides, pharmaceutical and medical device companies have a variety of legitimate reasons for relationships with physicians.  They work closely...

Colleen Hurson, Of Counsel at The Volkov Law Group joins us for her first posting on the blog concerning export control reform measures applicable to the firearms industry. Colleen has substantial experience in handling export control and sanctions compliance for clients subject to the State Department’s ITAR regulations and Commerce Department’s EAR regulations. Colleen can be reached at [email protected]. This week the Trump Administration is...

Webinar: Anti-Corruption Compliance in Pharma and Medical Device Industries February 26, 2019, 12 Noon EST Sign up HERE FCPA enforcement against drug and device companies continues at a robust rate. Given the high-risk nature of pharmaceutical and medical device industries and significant interactions with foreign government officials, drug and device companies face a number of challenges in designing and implementing effective anti-corruption compliance programs.  Join...

We are living in a rapidly changing world (trite, I know) where companies have to focus on data privacy and security for a variety of reasons.  Consumers and constituents are concerned about the safety and privacy of personal and financial information.  In this era of “sharing” and posting of private information, consumers and constituents have broad and reasonable expectations concerning their personal and financial information....

As compliance programs (and the profession) continue to mature, there is growing interest in the need for measurement, monitoring and auditing of compliance programs.  This is a natural evolution in the lifecycle of a compliance program. Once a CCO has operationalized a company’s compliance program, the next challenge logically is to design strategies to ensure proper operation.   The elements of an effective compliance program include...

I was honored to be named as a Top Thought Leader for 2019 by Trust Across America. More importantly, I am privileged to share this honor with 91 global professionals from a broad spectrum of professionals involved in integrity and trust, leadership, culture, compliance and ethics, reputation and risk management, governance, communications, employee engagement, sales and customer service.  The Announcement in TRUST Magazine’s Winter 2019...

Managing your third-party risks requires a wide-angle view of your third parties.  What do I mean by that? Companies are hyper-focused on identifying risks during the onboarding process, the use of automated platforms to organize and conduct such screening, and continuous monitoring through an automated platform.  Such a perspective, however, is far too narrow in scope and scale.  Too many third-party risk management strategies ignore...