The end of the road for Roger Ng, the Goldman Sachs Investment Banker, who played a critical role in the Goldman Sachs 1 MDB Malaysia scandal, was not a pretty one.  District Judge Margo Brodie gave Ng a severe sentence of ten (10) years’ imprisonment.  At the sentencing hearing, Judge Brodie chastised Ng for participating in a massive scheme to steal billions of dollars from...

April 11, 2023 12 Noon EST Sign Up HERE The Justice Department continues to increase its expectations for corporate ethics and compliance programs. In recent months, DOJ has issued revisions to its Corporate Enforcement Policy and Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs. DOJ ‘s Criminal Division issued new guidance governing its Pilot Program governing Corporate Compliance Compensation Systems and Clawbacks. In combination, these documents underscore significant...

OFAC had a quiet start to the year – no enforcement actions but plenty of new and revised sanctions against Russia.  OFAC started off March 2023 with a new enforcement action against Godfrey Phillips India, a tobacco manufacturer headquartered in India.  Godfrey Phillips India (“GPI”) agreed to pay $332,500 for five violations of the North Korea Sanctions Program.  GPI’s violations stemmed indirectly from GPI’s receipt...

As we have noted on numerous occasions, the U.S. Russia Sanctions and Export Control Program is unprecedented and a compliance challenge for all organizations.   In another unprecedented action, the Justice Department and the Departments of Commerce and Treasury issued a Joint Compliance Note (“JCN”)on the importance of compliance with the Russia Sanctions and Export Control requirement, which provides important descriptions of red flags and tactics...

Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company, based in Sweden, settled its breach of the 209 Deferred Prosecution Agreement, agreed to enter a guilty plea and pay a $206 million penalty.  In 2019, Ericsson entered into a three-year DPA, paid a $1 billion penalty to DOJ and the SEC for FCPA violations.  DOJ notified Ericsson in 2021 that it had breached the DPA by violating the DPA’s...

The Justice Department promised that it would flesh out compliance program incentives requirements and preservation of business data as part of its revision of its Corporate Enforcement Policy.  In a pair of important speeches, DOJ officials, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, previewed the new policies. Shortly after the speeches, the Justice Department released a new version of...

The Justice Department continues to push on white collar corporate enforcement, and the intersection of national security sanctions and export controls with corporate criminal enforcement.  Last week, Lisa Monaco, DOJ’s Deputy Attorney General, and Kenneth Polite, Assistant Attorney General of DOJ’s Criminal Division, delivered one-two punches in separate speeches at the ABA White Collar Conference in Miami, Florida.  In their speeches, DOJ announced new enforcement...

This is not your typical FCPA enforcement action Lessons Learned column.  Instead, Ericsson’s breach of its DPA presents a laundry list of internal investigation errors – as a practitioner in this area, this is the nightmare scenario.  It is a cautionary tale for all investigators, whether conducted by internal staff or outside counsel. Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the internal investigation deficiencies, I would...

Ericsson’s breach of its 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement reads like an internal investigation horror show.  It is every investigator’s nightmare scenario – failure to discover evidence that was available to inform and understand the full scope of corporate misconduct.  For Ericsson, these failures have undermined the integrity of its corporate commitment to compliance and ethical culture, damaged even further its reputation and threatened its relationship...

Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company, based in Sweden, settled its breach of its 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement, agreed to enter a guilty plea and pay a $206 million penalty.  In 2019, Ericsson entered into a three-year DPA, paid a $1 billion penalty to DOJ and the SEC for FCPA violations.  DOJ notified Ericson in 2021 that it had breached the DPA by violating the DPA’s...