In a recent decision, Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to reject the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of in-house administrative proceedings to adjudicate securities fraud claims. The Supreme Court specifically ruled that the defendant in a securities fraud case has a Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial when the SEC seeks civil penalties against the defendant. The Seventh...
LRN has issued another important report — in its latest report, The 2024 Benchmark of Ethical Culture Report, LRN has focused on the critical issue of corporate culture. LRN is a pacesetter and the leader in reliable studies on complex ethics and compliance issues. If not properly promoted or maintained, a defective culture can lead to serious misconduct, government investigation, reputational damage and collateral harm. ...
OFAC has been busy and not so busy — what do I mean? OFAC is administering a complex set of coordinated sanctions against Russia, in close coordination with the EU and the UK. This is not a simple matter. In addition to this close coordinating responsibility, the United States and its allies are expanding the reach and bite of the sanctions to restrict Russia and...
This blog post was co-authored by Daniela Melendez, an Associate with The Volkov Law Group. On June 14, 2024, U.S. Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, Matthew Axelrod, officially issued an order activating the suspended portion of a civil penalty that was imposed on U.S-based freight forwarder USGoBuy, LLC (“USGoBuy”) for repeated, seemingly flagrant, violations of the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”). USGoBuy—a package...
Organizations with operations in California are reminded of the upcoming July 1, 2024 deadline to comply with the provisions of S.B. 553—a bill that was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 20, 2023, following swift passage by both houses of the California State Legislature earlier in the same month. Among other things, S.B. 553 officially amends the California Labor Code (“Labor Code”)...
On June 17, 2024, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that trading giant Trafigura had agreed to pay a $55 million fine to settle charges of fraud and manipulation. The conduct at issue allegedly took place between 2014 and 2020, and included offenses such as trading on non-public information, benchmark manipulation, and impeding whistleblower communications. The high-flying commodities trading industry, through which an...
This blog post was co-authored by Daniela Melendez, an Associate with The Volkov Law Group. On May 30, 2024, following passage by the European Parliament in late April, the European Council officially adopted a set of rules that modernizes and harmonizes money laundering and terrorist financing (“AML/CFT”) regulations across the various EU Member States. The new AML/CFT regulations consists of three (3) primary components: the EU Single Rulebook...
Checklists can be handy — by simplifying and focusing on specific issues, a checklist can organize thinking and prioritize tasks. Here are five (5) questions that are fairly simple but revealing as to whether a company’s Sanctions Compliance Program (“SCP”) is effective. This is not an exhaustive list but it is my top 5. Question 1 — Does the Company conduct annual sanctions compliance training...
We all know what a “core” sanctions violation looks like. The heartland of such misconduct has been described on numerous occasions in OFAC enforcement actions and settlements. In this environment, however, companies have to be aware of conduct that may still violate the law but is not necessarily in the “heartland” of misconduct. DOJ, OFAC and BIS are well aware of the broad reach of...
In this new era of aggressive sanctions enforcement, companies have to understand the red lines that define where criminal and civil enforcement risk increase. In contrast to the history of FCPA enforcement, DOJ and OFAC have provided helpful guidance to alert companies where risks are likely to increase. Sanctions enforcement involves an off mix of civil and criminal line drawing. On the civil side, OFAC...
