Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Compliance Manager at the Volkov Law Group, joins us for an informative four-part series on the EU Whistleblower Directive. Alex can be reached at [email protected]. Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and Council dated 23 October 2019 on the “protection of persons who report breaches of Union law” (the “Directive”)[1] is set to enter into legal force on 17 December 2021—the deadline...

We all know and hear about third-party risks – over and over again. Despite this recurring theme, organizations continue to pay the price for failing to address third-party issues.  It does not take a rocket scientist to address third-party risks.  All too often, corporations flirt with a third party because of the lure of a lucrative deal, an elusive contract, or a winning bid. When...

FCPA settlement actions often underscore specific compliance risks for legal and compliance professionals. If there ever was a case where third-party risks were bungled, and even intentionally embraced, the Foster Wheeler case provides  an important reminder for any organization focusing on third-party risk management.  The Foster Wheeler FCPA resolution could not be timed any better – with the expected increase in FCPA enforcement activity, DOJ...

Fasten Your Seat Belts, Its Going to Be a Bumpy Ride” – Bette Davis (as Margo Channing), in All About Eve (1950) The Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission are back in business.  The first corporate FCPA enforcement action in 2021 came after a six-month hiatus in 2021.  While many commentators sought to read the tea leaves of some tactical change in FCPA enforcement,...

The federal criminal law prohibiting computer fraud has been in desperate need for a rewrite. Title 18, Section 1030, was drafted at a time in the mid-1980s when computer access was in its infancy — now, computer access is the primary terrain for serious criminal fraud, hacking and other transnational or organized crime. Given the current state of dysfunction in Washington, D.C., it is unlikely...

You just can’t make this stuff up – the Justice Department, displaying its growing sophistication of the cyber world, announced it recovered most of the ransom paid to criminal hackers of Colonial Pipeline Co. (Colonial).  As you will recall, Colonial’s pipeline had been the victim of a cyberattack resulting in a shutdown of a critical supplier of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.  Colonial paid the ransomware...

Stephen Naughton, a legal and compliance leader, has recently published an interesting article, Compliance Opportunities in and after the Time of COVID-19, in the Compliance Law Journal. The article is available here. Stephen is currently the Director, Regulatory Compliance Studies and Clinical Professor, at Loyola University, Chicago School of Law. Prior to his current role, Stephen served on the Volkswagen Monitorship with Larry Thompson, and...

Last week, I participated in an interesting webinar, sponsored by Clausematch, on Policy Management, Governance and Leveraging your Culture of Compliance. Joining me on the webinar was Willem Wellinghoff, Chief Compliance Officer, and Jeff Weiss, EVP at Clausematch. I hope you have a chance to listen to the replay. The discussion was interesting. The webinar replay is here. The slides can be downloaded here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is gaining traction in the enforcement of cybersecurity and disclosure requirements.  The SEC has a lot on its plate these days – ESG, cybersecurity, and the traditional mix of enforcement cases.  While the new Chairman has been chomping at the bit, he stumbled out of the gate in his selection of a new enforcement director, Alex Oh, who eventually resigned...

The Antitrust Division has pushed bid-rigging and price-fixing prosecutions of government contractors.  It is long overdue – fraud enforcement has uncovered a number of bid-rigging and price-fixing schemes among government contractors.  To focus on this enforcement priority, DOJ created the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, which was initiated in November 2019, and consists of a multi-agency task force designed to uncover antitrust price-fixing schemes. The case...