Rio Tinto, the global mining and metals company, agreed to pay the SEC $15 million to settle FCPA violations arising from an alleged bribery scheme involving a senior Guinean government official. Between 1997 and 2006, Rio Tinto was granted mining and exploration rights to four section blocks in the Simandou mountain region. In late 2008, after a change in administrations, the Guinea Government revoked Raio...
Flutter Entertainment, the previous owner of PokerStars, agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $4 million for improper payments to Russian-based consultants, stemming from conduct committed by The Stars Group, PokerStars previous owner. Flutter purchased PokerStars in 2020. Flutter is an Ireland-based global gaming and sports betting company. Flutter was tagged with the FCPA violations committed by the Stars Group prior to Flutter’s acquisition. ...
Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Manager at The Volkov Law Group, recently was featured on Tom Fox’s Diligent Podcast Series focused on Third-Party Risk Management. The Podcast is available HERE. In 2022, the overwhelming majority of FCPA related enforcement actions involved third parties and required organizations to reprioritize third party risk management. In this episode, Alex and Tom consider case studies involving ABB Limited, GOL Airlines and...
I was honored to appear on Adam Turteltaub’s Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE’s) Podcast to discuss significant compliance events in 2022 and trends for 2023. Adam’s Introduction: A lot happened in compliance in 2022, with a large number of lessons for 2023. To sort it out we turned to Michael Volkov, of the Volkov Law Group and host of the Corruption, Crime & Compliance blog and podcast....
The Justice Department has been pushing its voluntary self-disclosure program and changes to its Corporate Enforcement Policy, in an attempt to increase FCPA enforcement cooperation. The Golden Ring for every company facing this situation is a declination with disgorgement. Only 17 companies have achieved that result. The latest beneficiary is Corsa Coal Corporation (“Corsa”), which cooperated with the Justice Department and resulted in the successful...
The Justice Department finally released its new policy to improve corporate preservation of data generated by executives and employees. In this new technology era, companies have had significant gaps in collecting and reviewing data generated by messaging applications, texting systems and emails. While many employees have been using personal devices for business purposes, a large number of companies have failed to apply strict BYOD policies...
The Justice Department is focusing with a laser beam on corporate incentives and disincentives. This truly is a remarkable initiative and companies should undertake their own holistic review of internal incentives and disincentives. For years, we have heard about corporate incentives to achieve earnings and how sales rewards can unintentionally distort compliance. As an important step, DOJ’s Criminal Division recently issued its new, three-year Pilot...
The Justice Department is rapidly pushing corporations to a new level of compliance. We are witnessing a watershed moment – DOJ is raising the bar on expectations surrounding corporate compliance programs. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret DOJ’s recent changes as limited to compliance compensation and preservation of internal communications data. The New Push on Human Resource Cooperation When considered together, the changes...
The end of the road for Roger Ng, the Goldman Sachs Investment Banker, who played a critical role in the Goldman Sachs 1 MDB Malaysia scandal, was not a pretty one. District Judge Margo Brodie gave Ng a severe sentence of ten (10) years’ imprisonment. At the sentencing hearing, Judge Brodie chastised Ng for participating in a massive scheme to steal billions of dollars from...
OFAC had a quiet start to the year – no enforcement actions but plenty of new and revised sanctions against Russia. OFAC started off March 2023 with a new enforcement action against Godfrey Phillips India, a tobacco manufacturer headquartered in India. Godfrey Phillips India (“GPI”) agreed to pay $332,500 for five violations of the North Korea Sanctions Program. GPI’s violations stemmed indirectly from GPI’s receipt...
