Alexander Cotoia, Regulatory Manager and Senior Consultant at The Volkov Law Group PC, rejoins us for a posting on Myanmar AML risks. Alex can be reached at [email protected]. On October 21, 2022, the global Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) added the nation of Myanmar to its so-called “blacklist” of jurisdictions with “strategic deficiencies” in their legal and regulatory regimes that permit illicit financial activity such...

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security promised aggressive enforcement of export controls.  BIS’s promise extended beyond the Russian-Belarus export controls.  BIS has kept its promise. WEBs Electronics Trading Company In a recent charging letter, BIS stated that WEBS Electronics Trading Company, a United Arab Emirates company, violated U.S. export controls by shipping or trying to ship $50,000 worth of U.S.-origin telecommunications items...

The Justice Department continues to pile up healthcare enforcement actions — false claims, anti-kickback, and fraud.  DOJ is on its way to a record year. In a recent enforcement action, Modernizing Medicine (“ModMed”), an electronic health record (“EHR”) vendor, agreed to pay $45 million for AKS and False Claims Act violations for receiving bribes in exchange for referrals and causing users to falsely report information...

The “hot” regulatory and compliance issue is incentives (and conversely disincentives).  The Justice Department has launched an initiative to require compliance programs to institute clawbacks and other measures to recover bonuses and benefits from senior executives and managers that commit misconduct.  The Justice Department directed the Criminal Division to study this issue and propose additional measures to ensure that bad actors are punished financially. Right...

In yet another indication of the renewed, aggressive antitrust enforcement program, the Justice Department recently announced the first attempted criminal monopolization case in decades — Nathan Nephi Zito, the president of a paving and asphalt company in Billings, Montana, pleaded guilty to attempting to monopolize the market for highway crack-sealing services in Montana and Wyoming. In a famous civil prosecution in the 1980s, Robert L....

The old adage — if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t — still rings true when it comes to MoviePass, which ultimately resulted in a criminal indictment charging two former executives with securities fraud. Theodore Farnsworth and Mitchell Lowe were charged with a scheme to defraud investors through materially false and misleading representations relating to MoviePass’ parent company, Helios &...

We always focus on foreign bribery — the FCPA and corporate bribery of foreign officials.  It is certainly a problem that undermines economic development and human rights. However, bribery and corruption is real and significant in the United States, from local to state to federal government officials, the news is filled with instances of bribery and corruption.  Wherever there is money flowing, there is sure...

It is easy to be dogmatic in blog postings — to express an unvarnished opinion that sounds valid.  While it may not be supported by hard data or valid evidence, compliance officers are used to trusting their “gut feelings,” when it comes to compliance.  Compliance professionals with experience agree largely on big ticket issues, and this view often reflects lots of real-world experience.  Sometimes the...

NAVEX continues to be one of the premier sources of essential annual benchmarking studies.  Recently, NAVEX issued its 2022 Definitive Risk and Compliance Benchmark Report.  The Report was based on over 1100 survey responses from compliance professionals around the world. From the topline view, NAVEX reported that organizations have successfully addressed post-COVID work environments with a combination of on-site, remote and hybrid arrangements.  In this...

We constantly hear about the importance of “accountability,” meaning that organizations and individuals have to be held accountable for misconduct or failures to act.  The focus on accountability is a positive trend, consistent with our ideas of justice and fairness,  Within an organization, accountability is a cornerstone of organizational justice. When demands for accountability reach the board room and individual board members, however, there are...