The Biden Administration recognizes that the Russian Price-Cap Policy imposes serious burdens on U.S. energy companies and industries that provide ancillary services to the energy sector.  It is even more complicated given the EU framework and another set of guidance related to the oil price cap.  To ameliorate this burden, OFAC has set out detailed guidance on regulatory “safe harbors” for organizations and individuals affected...

The G-7, the European Union and Australia officially announced a price cap on Russian oil, which includes service and shipping restrictions on oil originating from the Russian Federation and trading above $60 per barrel.  After months of negotiations among the nations, the countries finally reached an agreement on a cap that is designed to reduce revenue to Russia in response to the ongoing war in...

Contrary to the often-repeated narrative, the Justice Department is transparent about its enforcement plans and compliance expectations.  Since the issuance of the FCPA Guidance in 2012, DOJ has continued to provide guidance on a number of important issues.  It also telegraphs its compliance priorities by acknowledging assignment of resources and creation of specific task forces.  Of course, DOJ can provide more transparency on a range...

The ABB case, like most significant FCPA enforcement actions, sets important precedent and policy reminders. With time, and looking back, ABB gives companies with a prior criminal history a way forward to seek a fair resolution notwithstanding huge obstacles based on past performance.  If you are ABB, you dodged a significant bullet – the appointment of an independent compliance monitor, which DOJ has been regularly...

The details of bribery schemes are invaluable for learning how criminals think – bribery always requires some scheme to transfer money from the organization to fund bribery payments to a government official(s).  Compliance professionals like to comb through the wreckage and turn the inquiry into a self-assessment.  The logical questions follow: All of these inquiries are important to apply to analyze your own company’s weaknesses...

The Justice Department’s new Corporate Enforcement Policy and the heightened enforcement and compliance expectations were put to the test in its announcement of a $315 million settlement of bribery charges with ABB, a three-time loser in foreign bribery enforcement.  In some respects, the new policy should not apply to ABB’s case given its recent announcement but nonetheless the ABB resolution provides some important indicators of...

Join us December 7-8 for Compliance Week’s Third Party Risk Management & Oversight Summit, the only cross-industry conference dedicated to risk management, oversight strategies, and best practices for vendor and third-party relationships. The Summit will be live-streamed virtually. Our Partner Jessica Sanderson will be joining Sandeep Bhide for a panel entitled Deep Dive into Third-Party Relationships to Identify 4th and Nth Parties on December 7 from 12:00...

Alexander Cotoia, Regulatory Manager at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for a posting on State Department’s plan to increase ITAR enforcement of controlled data transfers. Alex can be reached at [email protected]. During a plenary session of the Defense Trade Advisory Group (“DTAG”)  that convened on November 9, 2022, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mike Miller outlined a number of initiatives undertaken by the Directorate...