This has been  an interesting enforcement year.  The Biden Administration promised a renewal of aggressive enforcement. The difficult transition from the last administration and political resistance to confirmation of political appointees has delayed the transition process.  Consequently, enforcement has gotten off to a slow start.  But companies would make a big mistake in embracing complacency or just waiting for enforcement to pick up before elevating...

The healthcare industry faces cascading risks – one risk flows to another with compounding financial results.  Three generic drug companies just experienced this cascading liability.  As part of the Justice Department Antitrust Division’s investigation of the generic drug industry, Taro, Sandoz and Apotex settled criminal antitrust cases by entering into a deferred prosecution agreement, paying a financial settlement and agreeing to cooperate with the ongoing...

Organizational risk does not exist in a vacuum – social forces have a direct and immediate impact on company risks, especially when it comes to employee conduct.  Social media has transformed our society, making information sharing instantaneous. For companies, social media risks exist on internal communications platforms and on individual employee platforms outside of work.  Many companies find the issue so difficult and complex that...

Chief compliance officers are creative professionals.  This is one of many areas of expertise.  But when it comes to corporate politics, many CCOs know how to package and promote their mission. CCOs faced real constraints and challenges during the pandemic. CCOs were challenged as to why compliance was an important function to preserve in the time of a pandemic which threatened many companies’ very existence. ...

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has targeted collusion in labor markets for criminal prosecution.  This was not unexpected.  Indeed, the Antitrust Division gave plenty of warning to companies that criminal prosecutions were on the horizon. Over ten years ago, DOJ brought civil cases to stop illegal labor market collusion. Out of an abundance of caution, DOJ recognized that it wanted to provide “fair warning” of...

In the second OFAC enforcement action released on the same day, September 27, 2021, Schlumberger Rod Lift, Inc. (“SRL”) (now d/b/a Lufkin Rod Lift, Inc.), and formerly a subsidiary of Schlumberger Lift Solutions LLC (“SLS”), a U.S. subsidiary of Schlumberger Curaçao, Netherlands, agreed to pay $160,000 to settle an OFAC violation of the Sudan Sanctions Program (since repealed in October 2017) stemming from one shipment...

In a pair of enforcement actions, here and here, OFAC settled two separate actions involving Schlumberger Limited subsidiaries – the first involving Cameron International Corporation, and the second, Schlumberger Rod Lift, Inc., a former subsidiary, that was acquired by Lufkin Rod Lift, Inc. Cameron agreed to pay $1.423 million to settle OFAC charges for providing services to the Gazprom-Neft Shelf for an Arctic offshore oil...

The long political and prosecution standoff between the U.S. Government/Department of Justice and Huawei/China ended abruptly last week when Wanzhou Meng, CFO of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. appeared in federal district court in Brooklyn and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) and admitted to misleading global financial institutions. Meng was immediately released and returned to China. The resolution of Wanzhou Meng’s case resolved a...

The SEC’s FCPA enforcement action against WPP presents a number of important lessons learned, ranging from third-party risk management, properly responding to employee complaints and red flags, and failure to integrate acquisition targets into existing compliance programs.  At bottom, WPP and its subsidiaries lacked any culture of compliance.  While it is easy to cite all the deficiencies in the WPP subsidiaries, such a focus misses...

The SEC’s FCPA settlement with WPP for over $19.2 million provides a variety of bribery schemes in several high-risk venues. The schemes are instructive because they remind anti-corruption compliance professionals of the number of ways in which bribery can be carried out.  In this way, the SEC’s enforcement action is informative and contains helpful reminders on various risks in the anti-corruption arena.  India: In July...