The Justice Department trumpeted its criminal prosecutions against defendants charged with Libor-rigging.  It had a right to toot its own horn.  But many of these convictions have not withstood the scrutiny of appellate courts. Recently, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in United States v. Connolly, reversed the criminal convictions of Matthew Connolly and Gavin Black.  Interestingly, the Second Circuit panel rejected...

Criminal antitrust is burning a path in prosecuting illegal wage-fixing agreements in labor markets.  The Justice Department warned companies over five years ago and now DOJ is executing on its warning.  Over the last two years, the Antitrust Division has indicted four companies and seventeen (17) individuals.  The Antitrust Division is promising more indictments. At the end of 2021, DOJ indicted six individuals, one of...

Chief compliance officers have plenty of things to do and risks to manage.  CCOs have a unique remit and a set of skills that should be applied whenever needed.  While I am not trying to increase CCO workload (and forgive me if I am), CCOs should have responsibility for design and implementation of an effective criminal antitrust compliance program. For many years, antitrust compliance was...

There is no question but we are in the “perfect storm” for antitrust enforcement.  Antitrust enforcement is fast-becoming an area of rare “bipartisanship.”  Republicans resent the growing power and influence of technology and social media companies.  Democrats are concerned about the growth of the rich, large companies and political influence.  Jonathan Kanter, the confirmed Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, has already signaled that...

Economic sanctions enforcement is a fast-rising risk for global companies. For many years, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) focused primarily on financial institutions. Over the last ten years, OFAC has stretched its enforcement eyes towards software, manufacturing, telecommunications and technology companies. With this growth in sanctions enforcement, OFAC has embraced an aggressive view of third-party risks. Like the FCPA, under OFAC’s regime, third parties...

Jessica Sanderson, Partner at The Volkov Law Group, joins us for a blog posting on how to prepare for possible Russia sanctions in the event Russia invades the Ukraine. Jessica can be reached at [email protected]. Compliance Professionals: As the Ukraine braces for a possible Russian incursion, are you bracing for the impact of economic sanctions against Russia? In this article we offer suggestions to help...

Chief compliance officers have a difficult job (to say the least).  If everything goes well, they are hailed as heroes.  If a major problem occurs, everyone looks to the CCO to find out why the problem occurred.  In the latter situation, the implicit message to CCOs is “why didn’t you prevent this problem, I thought you were supposed to prevent this.”  This reflects a fundamental...

Facing the myriad third-party sanctions risks can be daunting.  Many global organizations rely on a network of third-party intermediaries that pose a variety of risks.  To mitigate those risks, companies have to implement practical steps tailored to the specific risks. Let’s start with some basic compliance requirements.  Initially, as part of the onboarding process and assignment of a sanctions risk category, global organizations have to...

The task of designing appropriate third-party sanctions controls requires reverse engineering of relevant caselaw, particularly, the Epsilon Electronics case, which I reviewed in Part I of this series, and the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) sanctions regulations.  It is one thing to detect and prevent situations where a company actor has “actual knowledge” that a shipment to a third party is...

If there is one issue that is repeated over and over (and over), it is third-party risks.  Over the last ten years, we have witnessed an explosion in anti-corruption enforcement around the world.  And with this enforcement focus, it was inevitable that third-party risk would become one of the core areas for ethics and compliance programs. Indeed, the importance of third-party risk is underscored by...