The increase in FCPA enforcement has lead to the growth in the legal cottage industry surrounding compliance and  enforcement.  More and more companies are advertising their due diligence services, their intelligence gathering services, and their overall ability to help companies comply with the law. Lawyers are guilty of this mass marketing hysteria.  Webinars are offered every week; boot camps and other meetings are scheduled every quarter...

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Join Michael Volkov, Andrew Hulsh and Richard Rosenfeld  Mayer Brown LLP Partners —  November 8, 2011 at 12:30 pm   In this era of aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and anti-corruption laws, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have now turned their attention to private equity and hedge funds. The implications of this new initiative are far-reaching...

Internal auditors are the compliance super heroes.  But they are also the villains.  Perhaps that is why they are frequently isolated or labeled as schizophrenics in any organization. The government wants to focus its investigations on internal auditors and hold them accountable as the gatekeepers, the people in a company that are supposed to detect bribery.  Underlying the books and records provision of the FCPA...

Canada is an interesting country – not just to visit — but in anti-corruption enforcement.  Canada is dead last in the G7 when it comes to anti-corruption enforcement. Transparency International has consistently criticized Canada’s anti-corruption enforcement program as woeful.  Last year, the OECD cited Canada for its poor enforcement record. For companies subject to Canadian anti-corruption law, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA),...

“Quite as important as lawmaking is vigilant oversight of administration.” Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (1885) The scene on television is all too familiar. Corporate executives from a company in the headlines are dragged before a Congressional committee, they are placed under oath, and they are asked a series of questions by Senators or Congressmen/women, to which they each respond by asserting their Fifth Amendment privilege....

The press continues to focus attention on dysfunctional corporate boards and scandals resulting from poor board supervision and performance. It is particularly distressing to see these issues arising after so many reforms have been instituted over the last two decades. Some of these criticisms have been fair and some are just not true. Many boards have just plain failed to guide strategy effectively, oversee risk...

The private equity industry has been taking it on the chin.  First, the Dodd-Frank bill imposed a number of new regulatory requirements on the private equity industry, including the requirement that fund managers register with the SEC by March 30, 2012 under the Investment Advisers Act.  Second, the SEC has been focusing a number of enforcement actions on private equity managers, especially in the area...

It has been proven over and over again that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, but most people don’t want to look at a naked emperor – Frank Zappa Compliance does not mean just checking off a box and continuing business as usual.  All too often, small and mid-size companies, private and public, are adopting cookie-cutter compliance programs and moving on to the next project. ...

Drug and device companies have a lot to worry about these days. Not only have they been targeted for FCPA enforcement actions, but they continue to be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department and HHS/FDA for “off-label” marketing of their products. DOJ has collected significant fines against companies, convicted individual officers, and employed aggressive policies to charge senior managers who have no knowledge of...