On December 31, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed the the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (“UFLPA”) into law to address the ongoing exploitation of the ethnic minority Uyghur population by the government of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”). Among other things, the UFLPA creates a rebuttable presumption that all goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part...

Gabrielle Griffith, Director BPE Global, is an expert in trade compliance issues. Gabrielle assists clients in implementing effective trade compliance programs by addressing improvements within organizations’ people, processes, and systems. In the area of U.S. export controls, she advises clients on compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, and the various embargo and sanctions programs administered by the Office...

DOJ is in the midst of launching an aggressive sanctions and export control program against corporations and individuals.  DOJ has warned everyone, repeated this message in various speeches and, most importantly, assigned the resources — 25 new federal prosecutors to enforce sanctions and export controls — to back up its enforcement program. The new model for sanctions corporate enforcement will look like FCPA enforcement —...

FCPA trends often are relatively easy to describe and often overblown as a marketing technique by the usual cast of paparazzi suspects.  (Self-proclaimed prognosticators that often push incorrect themes to promote business, or those that restate profound grasps of the obvious).  2023 has been a strange year in a number of respects — socially, politically and even in the small universe of DOJ enforcement and...

Natalie Druckmann, Vice President at Certa, joins Michael Volkov to discuss third-party risk management and the use of advanced artificial intelligence to implement effective risk mitigation strategies. Natalie sets the strategy for Certa’s expansion into the EMEA markets and growing Certa’s customer base with the use of Certa’s advanced AI tool — CertaAssist. CertaAssist’s suite of intelligent solutions include: The initial roll-out of CertaAssist has...

In November 2023, HHS-OIG issued a comprehensive document, the General Compliance Program Guidance (“GCPG”), which outlines important compliance guidance for the healthcare industry. The GCPG provides specific guidance on compliance with the Federal anti-kickback statute (“AKS”), the Physician Self-Referral Law (“Stark Law”), the False Claims Act, HIPAA Privacy and Security, Exclusion Authorities, and Criminal Healthcare Fraud. Aside from this important compendium of statutory and regulatory...

On November 21, 2023, The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced settlement agreements with Binance Holdings Limited (“Binance”), the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Changpeng Zhao (affectionally known as “CZ” in the cryptocurrency industry), the exchange’s founder and Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”).  Under these agreements, Binance and CZ each agreed to plead guilty to a variety of offenses in order to resolve the ongoing investigations. ...

Steve Naughton, a well-known and accomplished compliance professional, joins Michael Volkov to discuss his compliance career and his role as the Director of Regulatory Compliance Studies and Clinical Professor at the Loyola University Chicago Law School. Steve has served in a variety of important roles in corporate compliance, including Pepsi. Co, and Kimberly-Clark, as well as the Monitor appointed to the Volkswagen case. In this...

DOJ announced settlements with two U.K.-based reinsurance brokers, H.W. Wood Limited (“Wood”) and Tysers Insurance Brokers (“Tysers”) for their participation in a bribery scheme involving Seguros Sucre S.A. (“Sucre”) and Seguros Rocafuerte S.A. (“Rocafuerte”), two state-owned insurance companies in Ecuador.  Wood and Tysers each entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ and agreed to the filing of a criminal information in the Southern...