Category: General

3 Mar, 2020

Cardinal Health Pays SEC $8.8 Million for FCPA Violations

Cardinal Health (“Cardinal”) agreed to pay the SEC $8.8 million for FCPA violations in China relating to its internal controls and books and records. (SEC Order Here). Cardinal acknowledged facts relating to internal controls deficiencies and its handling of marketing accounts that it supervised for its distributors. In particular, while Cardinal mitigated its corruption risks by terminating many of these accounts, Cardinal inaccurately assessed the...

General

2 Mar, 2020

Admit It – Your Compliance Program is Not Really “Effective”

Chief compliance officers are heroes. They labor every day to advance a company’s ethics and compliance program without much recognition, with few resources, and with well-known gaps in their programs. CCOs live by a credo – they risk-rank and prioritize all their activities (hopefully) on an ongoing basis. It is a job similar to our cats and dogs chasing their own tails – they will...

General

27 Feb, 2020

The Impact of a New CEO

Businesses have to evolve in order to respond to the market, consumer demands, societal pressures and stakeholder expectations. Companies grow and pivot in two ways – organically or through acquisition or sales of parts. These changes have a significant impact on the business, its operations, its risk profile and eventually its success or failure to adapt. We often hear about the significant impact of a...

General

27 Feb, 2020

Incident Data and Intra-Company Cooperation

The Justice Department “listens and learns” from companies and compliance practitioners. As part of every enforcement action, DOJ prosecutors review and assess compliance programs in accordance with the standards explained in its recent Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs issued on April 30, 2019. DOJ prosecutors have seen it all when it comes to compliance. Prosecutors have observed compliance train wrecks – companies that have suffered...

General

25 Feb, 2020

Three Former Executives from Alstom and Marubeni Charged with Criminal FCPA Violations in Indonesia

In its continuing aggressive FCPA criminal enforcement program, DOJ announced the indictment of two former Alstom executives and a former Marubeni executive with FCPA violations arising from a bribery scheme in Indonesia. A copy of the indictment is here. The three former executives included: Reza Moenaf, the former president of Alstom’s Indonesia subsidiary; Eko Sulianto, the former director of sales of Alstom’s Indonesia subsidiary; and...

General

25 Feb, 2020

The Volkov Law Group is Hiring — Junior Associate and Paralegal

The Volkov Law Group is offering a great opportunity for a junior associate and a paralegal. The Volkov Law Group is a nationally-recognized boutique law firm that offers a variety of services, including criminal defense, securities compliance and defense, and ethics and compliance services, including anti-corruption, export and sanctions compliance, anti-money laundering, due diligence and internal investigations. As a leader in ethics and compliance and enforcement defense,...

General

24 Feb, 2020

Wells Fargo Settles With Justice Department for $3 Billion

This year, 2020, has been an enforcement year opening with billion-dollar settlements: first, Airbus settled FCPA charges for $4 billion, and now Wells Fargo for $3 billion. What a start to an enforcement year! We all have heard about the Wells Fargo debacle, and I have written repeatedly about Wells Fargo’s blatant misconduct. Wells Fargo has defined itself as a company lead by rotten senior...

General

19 Feb, 2020

Fourth Circuit Overturns Federal Prosecutors’ Use of Filter Team to Conduct Search of Law Firm Documents

The Fourth Circuit joined the fast-growing club of federal courts objecting to federal prosecutors and agents reliance on so-called “filter-team” procedures to review documents seized from a law firm that may contain privileged attorney-client and work product information. The Court’s decision is here. Over the last twenty years, federal prosecutors and agents have relied on filter team procedures to review documents and other materials that...

General

18 Feb, 2020

The Dangerous Mix of Incentives and “Misconduct”

We often hear about the dangerous risk to a company’s culture from rigorous sales incentive programs. Like most issues, the answer to this issue is not cut and dried. On the one hand, we have a glaring example of failure – the Wells Fargo case. Financial sales staff were subjected to an incredible sales program – for each client, a sales employee was required to...

General

17 Feb, 2020

Rebalancing Third-Party Risk Strategies

As companies move forward on third-party risk management programs, and as automated third-party risk solutions are being implemented, compliance professionals have to re-examine and re-balance the allocation of resources and time among three separate functions: (1) onboarding due diligence; (2) monitoring third-party conduct; and (3) review and audit of third-parties. Over the last ten years, companies have focused on initial due diligence and onboarding procedures,...