The SEC continues its cutting edge FCPA enforcement program, bringing in a variety of enforcement cases and employing some new strategies. In its latest foray, the SEC settled with Las Vegas Sands, owned by Sheldon Adelson, for $9 million for deficiencies in its internal accounting controls concerning its operations in China and Macao. The SEC’s enforcement action reflects one important theme – they could not...
The importance of DOJ’s hiring of Hui Chen as Compliance Counsel was recently confirmed by DOJ’s release of new compliance remediation standards for FCPA compliance programs. DOJ has, once again, raised the bar on FCPA compliance programs. Compliance practitioners have a real and significant voice on behalf of the compliance function inside the Justice Department. In adopting a new pilot program for FCPA enforcement and...
The Justice Department finally released its long-awaited new FCPA enforcement plan. It took DOJ a little while to come up with this and in the end, like most initiatives, there is a mixed bag for global companies, FCPA practitioners, DOJ prosecutors and law enforcement. Today’s posting analyzes the initiative on prosecution issues, and tomorrow’s post will review the compliance component of the new guidance. DOJ’s...
Lauren Connell, Managing Associate at The Volkov Law Group, joins us again for another posting on corruption risks in China. Her profile is here and she can be reached at [email protected]. A little fear is healthy. It will keep you vigilant and aware. At this point if corporate compliance departments are not a little fearful of doing business in China then their managers and employees...
Hui Chen, the Department of Justice’s Compliance Counsel, recently stated that 2015 was the year of due diligence and third-party compliance. A recent survey conducted by Kroll and Ethisphere provided a status check on how the due diligence compliance effort is going. Many companies have heard the message about the importance of due diligence compliance and instituted due diligence systems, hopefully using automated programs. Companies...
Akin to politics (to a smaller degree), there is a fair amount of disinformation, some call it bloviating, put out by the FCPA Paparazzi. Some of this disinformation is motivated by immature attempts to “market” legal services; other sources of disinformation carry a readily apparent bias, one way or the other, and usually are supported by self-citations to one’s own “scholarship” to prove their points....
Showing my age again, Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run included a hilarious scene when Woody’s parents wearing Groucho Marx glasses talk about their criminal son (Woody/Virgil Starkwell), his dad exclaimed “He’s rotten, he is a gangster.” See clip here. Well, the story of Valeant Pharmaceuticals is a familiar one of corporate greed and misconduct, based on a “rotten” tone at the top and...
Happy April Fool’s Day! Could you ever imagine coming to work one day and realizing that you have “finished” your ethics and compliance program? There is nothing left to do. You can go home. Ohhhh, if only it was so. We all know the truth – a compliance program is never finished, never completed and there is always something to do. This gets us back...
One very accurate indicator of a compliance program is the relationship between the CEO and the Chief Compliance Officer. If a CCO is repeatedly making excuses for a CEO who does not devote enough time to compliance, you can rest assured that the compliance program is nowhere near effective. Let’s start with the basics. Almost 60 percent of CCOs now report directly to the CEO....
Humans by nature seek to avoid uncomfortable feelings, events and situations. When a company suffers misconduct, the same principle holds true. Corporate actors, defense lawyers and board members will always minimize the bad actors and the harm they caused. In response to a bribery scheme confined to a country, the company will immediately seek refuge in the myth of the rogue employee. By definition, the...
