The Justice Department warned  companies that sanctions enforcement is the “new FCPA.”  Recently, DOJ 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...

The cryptocurrency industry has a target on its back – and perhaps justifiably so.  The SEC, CFTC and OFAC have been bringing a number of regulatory enforcement actions, including against Bittrex, Inc. ($24,280,829.20 in settlements with OFAC and FinCEN) and Payward, Inc. d/b/a Kraken ($362,158 settlement with OFAC).  Yet, the cryptocurrency has lots to worry about when it comes to compliance – fraud, cybersecurity, and...

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has suffered setbacks in its precedent-setting criminal prosecution of no-poach agreements in labor markets.  The latest and perhaps most surprising defeat occurred when the trial judge in Connecticut granted the defense motion for judgment of acquittal after the Antitrust Division prosecutors completed the government’s case. In a written decision, the court granted the defense’s motions for judgement of acquittal,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...