On December 5, 2024, DOJ announced a settlement with McKinsey and Company for $122 million for bribes paid to South African government officials to secure valuable consulting contracts. Between 2012 to 2016, McKinsey Africa, acting through former senior partner Vikas Sagar, who plead guilty in 2022, conspired to pay bribes to high-ranking officials at two South African state-owned enterprises: Transnet SOC Ltd., which was the...

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s is playing catch up to the Criminal Division on compliance leadership.  DOJ’s Criminal Division has issued four separate revisions to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.  This is the Antitrust Division’s first revision to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.  The Antitrust Division’s revisions mirror many of the Criminal Division’s recent revisions with a particular focus on emerging technologies,...

Bit Mining, formerly 500.com, was a doomed company from the beginning,  When a CEO orchestrates a bribery scheme with the assistance of other senior executives, shareholders and the public have little chance of ensuring a business operating with ethics and integrity. 500.com’s future was sealed when it embraced bribery as a means to avoid head-to-head competition against established US and European companies seeking to enter...

In reviewing FCPA bribery fact patterns, it is a rare occasion when a company’s CEO is at the epicenter of the criminal conspiracy.  In the BIT Mining case, standing atop all of the actors is the CEO  Zhengming Pan, Bit Mining’s former CEO and a Chinese national. DOJ had no choice but to charge Pan with a criminal FCPA conspiracy. Others could have been charged...

Earlier this year, Bit Mining and its CEO fell under the FCPA hammer.  Bit Mining, formerly known as 500.com, resolved investigations with the Justice Department and the SEC for its corrupt scheme to bribe Japanese government officials.  On the same date, DOJ announced the indictment of Zhengming Pan, Bit Mining’s former CEO and a Chinese national, for FCPA violations.  BIT Mining entered into a three-year...

In one of the more notable enforcement actions of 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) recently imposed a $1,104,408 civil penalty on a U.S. person for 75 separate violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (“ITSR”). The underlying violations, which occurred from 2019 to 2022, involved the purchase, renovation, and operation of a hotel on the Caspian...

By: Daniela Melendez, Associate at The Volkov Law Group, and Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Compliance Manager. Daniela can be reached at [email protected] and Alex can be reached out at [email protected]. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) recently settled with American Life Insurance Company (“ALICO”), a Delaware-based subsidiary of MetLife, Inc., for $178,421, addressing apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (“ITSR”)....

In an interesting political twist, the difference in approaches to antitrust enforcement between Democrat and Republican Administrations has been narrowing.  It used to be that the difference in party control of the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission would have a significant impact on enforcement priorities.  That gap is definitely changing and reflects growing agreement in the public in preventing anti-competitive conduct. Much of...

Happy Thanksgiving to our clients, friends, colleagues, and family!! We hope you have a wonderful and restful holiday. With peace and gratitude, The Volkov Law Group PC

We continue to hear about the impact of apparent or real conflicts of interest — whether in government, in business, or in other organizations.  It is an issue of significant importance.  Within an organization, a perceived or real conflict of interest can undermine the very integrity of the organization and a specific person’s ability to act in a manner consistent with the organization’s interests. Scandals...