Corruption, Crime & Compliance

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3 May, 2023

British American Tobacco’s Financial Scheme to Avoid Sanctions Detection (Part II of II)

British American Tobacco’s deceit and elevation of business over compliance permeates its recent blockbuster settlement for $629 million with the Department of Justice and Office of Foreign Asset Control. Importantly, the BAT settlement confirms DOJ’s new, aggressive approach to sanctions and export enforcement, and OFAC’s imposition of a penalty equal to the statutory maximum. For compliance professionals, the BAT scheme is interesting to review because...

General

2 May, 2023

British American Tobacco Pays $629 Million to Settle Violations of North Korea Sanctions (Part I of II)

The Justice Department warned companies that sanctions enforcement is the “new FCPA.” DOJ just delivered its first salvo to back up its message. As part of a broad effort to prosecute funding of North Korea’s nuclear program, DOJ and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced a joint settlement with British American Tobacco and its Asian marketing subsidiary (“BAT”), under which BAT agreed to pay...

Uncategorized

1 May, 2023

Webinar: “The New FCPA”: Sanctions and Export Control Enforcement

Webinar: “The New FCPA”: Sanctions and Export Control Enforcement Tuesday, June 6, 2023, 12 Noon EST Sign Up HERE Last year, the Department of Justice warned global companies of a new, aggressive strategy for enforcement of trade sanctions and export controls. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated that sanctions and export enforcement constituted “The New FCPA.” DOJ, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control...

Podcasts

1 May, 2023

Episode 272 — Making Corporate Culture a Reality

Everyone has jumped on the corporate culture bandwagon. For some new converts, they like to espouse corporate culture as a recent discovery, or a new-fangled approach for compliance programs. The story of corporate culture as a talismanic tool for ethics and compliance is really nothing new. Chief compliance officers knew the importance of corporate culture from the beginning. A number of companies separately called out...

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28 Apr, 2023

BIS Clarifies Approach to Export Enforcement Concerning Voluntary Self Disclosures and Reporting of Third Party Misconduct under Guise of “Policy Clarifications”

Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Manager at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for an important posting on policy clarifications issued by the BIS Office of Export Enforcement. Alex can be reached at [email protected]. On April 18, 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) Office of Export Enforcement (“OEE”) released a set of “policy clarifications” in the context of a memorandum authored...

General

27 Apr, 2023

A Compliance Imperative – Breaking Down Silos

All for One and One for All – The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas The famous swashbuckling adventure of The Three Musketeers should inspire chief compliance officers to pursue an important concept – the need for teamwork and collaboration is imperative for all compliance programs. We all know the pernicious effect that operational silos can create for CCOs and their need to collaborate with operational partners...

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26 Apr, 2023

Bureau of Industry and Security Extracts $300 Million Fine Against Seagate Technology for Violation of Huawei Prohibition

Say What You Mean and . . . Mean What [You] Say – The March Hare in Lewis Caroll’s, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Matt Axelrod, the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, at the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, must be grinning with satisfaction that BIS delivered, in a big way, after he warned businesses that BIS would be...

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25 Apr, 2023

Supreme Court Authorizes Criminal Prosecution of Foreign State-Owned Entities

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge by Halkbank, a Turkish state-owned bank, to its criminal prosecution for anti-money laundering violations and evasion of Iran Sanctions. In a 7-2 decision, authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court rejected Halkbank’s claim that it was immune from U.S. federal criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Second Circuit to consider whether the common law...

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24 Apr, 2023

Episode 271 — A Deep Dive into the Microsoft OFAC Settlement

Microsoft agreed to pay $2,980,265.86 for illegal exports of services and software to sanctioned jurisdictions and Specially Designated Nationals (“SDNs”) in violation of OFAC’s Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Ukraine-/Russia-Related sanctions programs. Most of the violations involved prohibited Russian entities or persons located in the Crimea region of Ukraine. Microsoft failed to identify and prevent the use of its products by prohibited parties. Microsoft voluntarily disclosed...

General

23 Apr, 2023

Corporate Culture: Monitor, Intervene and Remediate (Part III of III)

Once defined, installed, and surrounded with a consequence management system, a corporate culture is not fixed in stone. To the contrary, as the business adapts through growth, innovation or in response to outside market and social forces, a company’s culture operates dynamically to reflect all of these influences. Change is inevitable for businesses (and for individuals in life). With this perspective, companies cannot just sit...