I have a lot of pet peeves, especially when it comes to lawyers and compliance professionals. Do not worry — this is a not a column about all of my pet peeves; I would never bore you with all those issues. My current pet peeve in the compliance field is the expression “compliance fatigue.” I am not a paranoid person but anyone who claims that...
The Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control continues to ramp up sanctions enforcement. Even with the likely relaxation of the Iran and Cuba sanctions, OFAC has been continuing its aggressive enforcement program. Thus far, OFAC has collected approximately $270 million in civil penalties, and participated in several major criminal investigations, including Commerzbank and Schlumberger. Commerzbank agreed to pay a total of $1.45 billion...
You have just been hired as the new Chief Compliance Officer of a global company operating in over 80 countries, including numerous high-risk corruption countries. You have no staff and have been given a budget to hire 5 full-time professionals, support staff, and technology, if reasonably priced. When you look into the existing compliance program, you realize that everything is a mess. There are no...
Jacqui Merrill, an Associate at The Volkov Law Group, joins us with a posting on the SEC’s request for increased access to emails. Jacqui’s profile is here, and she can be reached at jmerrill@volkovlaw.com. In a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting held on September 16, 2015, Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney expressed his frustration over the entity’s lack of access to stored emails....
An effective ethics and compliance program, by definition, translates into ethical business decisions. Believe it or not, to bring ethics into the equation you do not need to be a philosopher, historian, or professional ethicist. Ethical decision-making is a discipline. It is an approach to identifying and resolving issues in the business context. Of course, it occurs in many other contexts. Nor can ethical business...
Forgive me for a moment, as I write about a personal matter. My niece, Ashley Seeleman, at age 26, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Rather than giving in, feeling sorry for herself or lamenting her diagnosis, she has demonstrated incredible courage in dealing with her condition. I love her and admire her. Prior to her illness, Ashley was a hard-working college graduate. She now...
The Justice Department has to do something about its timing – and more importantly, they need to reexamine exactly what they did (and are doing) with the criminal prosecution of GM. If you want a perfect example of talking out of both sides of your mouth, the last two weeks put the focus right on the leadership of the Justice Department. The picture is not...
Federal prosecutors have turned their attention to physicians for Medicare fraud prosecution. Physicians who participate in the Medicare program have to be aware of the significant risks of Medicare fraud. In June, federal law enforcement orchestrated the largest nationwide Medicare bust of all time – 243 individuals were charged, including 46 doctors, nurses, and other licensed medical professionals for their participation in Medicare fraud schemes...
The Department of Justice’s far-reaching criminal investigation into the alleged electronic capacitor cartel has borne fruit – NEC Tokin Corporation agreed to plead guilty and pay a $13.8 million criminal fine for conspiring with competitors between 2002 and 2013. NEC Tokin’s plea is the first criminal plea in this investigation, and the electronics manufacturing company also agreed to cooperate in the Antitrust Division’s ongoing investigation....
It was like a bolt out of the blue – United Airlines’ CEO and two senior executives hastily announced their resignation as a result of their involvement in a bribery scandal with the New York Port Authority. As alleged in various news reports, the United executives secured some concessions for its Newark operations in exchange for United’s operation of a specific flight from Newark to...
