The Vimpelcom FCPA enforcement action is stunning in its breadth and the brazen nature of the bribery scheme. It is hard to accept that such conduct stretched into 2011 to 2013, given the significant emphasis placed on anti-corruption enforcement in the corporate governance world. It is easy to ask but hard to imagine how many other major companies are operating with such flimsy attention to...

Welcome back to the Department of Justice and FCPA enforcement. After a lengthy hiatus, DOJ returned to the FCPA enforcement scene with a demonstration of its full capability, assuming certain individuals are prosecuted criminally out of the case. (I know technically they reappeared with the PTC non-prosecution agreement but give me a little literary license). Overview In a top-10 worthy enforcement action, DOJ and the...

The SEC is setting its sights on individual prosecutions. Both the Justice Department and the SEC have reiterated the importance of prosecuting individuals. DOJ’s Yates Memorandum promises to deliver an increase in civil and criminal prosecutions. The SEC is delivering on its stated goal of increasing individual prosecutions. In a busy FCPA enforcement week, the SEC settled the SciClone Pharmaceuticals case and a separate prosecution...

Chief compliance officers and senior executives wrestle with strategies to spread and embed important compliance messages. A CEO and senior executives can spread a compliance message but they are always battling competing priorities in the overall direction and operation of the company. Nonetheless, we all have seen senior managers who are dedicated to promoting a compliance program, particularly in these days of aggressive enforcement. CCOs...

The Securities and Exchange Commission continues its steady march as the prominent FCPA enforcement agency against corporations.  The Justice Department has not brought any enforcement actions this year and continues to reevaluate its FCPA compliance program. In an interesting enforcement action, the SEC settled a case with SciClone Pharmaceuticals for $12.8 million for violations occurring in China. Unlike many other SEC enforcement actions, the SEC’s...

The FCPA can create a very one-sided view of corruption. The bribe payer is punished and most times the recipient is not. The Justice Department has used creative approaches to ensnare recipients as in the Direct Partners enforcement action, but for the most part the recipients are not punished nor even publicly identified. Bribery demands can occur in a variety of contexts; sometimes they are...

Financial institutions have been pushing back hard on FinCEN’s proposal to require banks, investment banks and other financial institutions to identify beneficial owners of account holders. As time goes on the impact of FinCEN’s proposal is diminishing. Why? In general, businesses have other reasons to secure beneficial ownership information. One key concern is sanctions compliance. To the extent an account holder engages in international transactions,...

I have to confess – I love the show Shark Tank. Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary, is my favorite Shark. Mr. Wonderful often reminds the contestants and other Sharks that the central issue in considering business proposals is – How do I make M-O-N-E-Y? The same focus on money has to be at the core of any anti-corruption compliance program. In examining a company’s risk profile,...

There has been a lot written about CCOs fearing prosecution for compliance failures. Not to say there is no risk, but the truth lies really in the middle.  From my perspective, there is too much fear-mongering around this issue. Let’s look at one extreme – a CCO who engages in misconduct should be prosecuted. A good example of this case is the prosecution of Thomas...

I am always wary of simplistic policy proposals – often the simple idea to apply one policy to another subject matter, just does not work. Instead, policy debate will turn to the simple idea and how it can easily be applied in other circumstances. Not to get too cute, but the inquiry requires deciding on which idiom to apply: Is this a situation where: “If...