Tagged: FCPA

Slowing Down the SEC Administrative Train

I am convinced that the law eventually reaches the “right” solution. There may be disastrous detours along the way, but in the end the law will adapt to reach the right result. Of course, our history is replete with instances of controversial, and ultimately embarrassing, court decisions (e.g. Plessy v. Ferguson). Nor do I mean to suggest that the SEC’s reliance on administrative hearings for...

Hiring Practices: A New or Old FCPA Compliance Challenge?

Contrary to the opinion of many in the FCPA space, the BNY Mellon settlement and the looming actions against six major financial institutions for hiring practices is not a big shock or surprise. The SEC is not raising a new or novel interpretation of the FCPA. After all, assuming an actor has corrupt intent, there is no real question as to whether hiring a person...

Calculating the Incalculable: Reputational Damage (Part I of III)

Today I begin a three-part series on reputational damage. The first part tries to define the term “reputational damage;” the second part focuses on managing threats to a company’s reputation; and the final posting proposes creation of a senior risk manager in a corporate leadership team. If you ask CEOs and board members about the threats to a company resulting from a DOJ enforcement action,...

Reminders: Volkov Law TV, E-Mail Subscriptions, Books and Volkov Law for Ethics and Compliance

Here at Corruption, Crime and Compliance, we aim to please our readers, subscribers, clients, associates and friends. We are committed to promoting the importance of ethics and compliance strategies, to supporting corporate governance improvements, and to implementing effective ethics and compliance functions. At the same time, we offer clients representation in response to government inquiries, subpoenas, investigations, as well as civil litigation.  Our legal services...

Webinar: Anti-Corruption Compliance in the High-Tech Sector

Webinar: Anti-Corruption Compliance in the High-Tech Sector   Wednesday, September 9, 2015, 12 Noon EST    Sign Up Here   The Justice Department and the SEC have focused FCPA enforcement resources on high-tech companies. Several high-tech companies have settled FCPA enforcement actions, while others remain under investigation. In a recent enforcement action, an SAP former executive plead guilty to an FCPA conspiracy and is awaiting...

SEC Promotes Value of Cooperating Witnesses

Change does not occur overnight. The SEC, as much as any other government agency, has touted its hiring of former prosecutors and use of aggressive investigation tactics. I always took those statements with a grain of salt – after all, the SEC is enforcing civil laws and regulations. A prosecutor can only do so much in the civil enforcement arena. In a recent Wall Street...

5 Signs Your Anti-Corruption Compliance Program is Suffering from “Tunnel Vision”

Many companies, depending on the industry, have implemented anti-corruption compliance programs. Some of the programs meet the standard for an “effective” anti-corruption compliance program. There is a vast difference between getting a program implemented on paper and an “effective” anti-corruption compliance program. After all, when you boil it down, anti-corruption compliance is not as difficult a task as everyone thinks. Some programs are immature, some...

Cecil the Lion and Due Diligence Failures

Lauren Connell, Managing Associate  at the Volkov Law Group, joins us again for a guest post.  Lauren’s profile is here and she can be reached at [email protected]. The “I didn’t know” defense is a tough one to sustain. Maybe you didn’t “know,” but should you have known? Were all the signs there but you looked the other way? Should you have asked more questions?  Is...

Private Equity’s Corruption Risk Underbelly — Portfolio Companies

FCPA enforcement will likely take a turn into the private equity industry. I know this is a regular claim by FCPA practitioners but we already can see the beginning of the trend. The “princeling” investigations are ongoing and the industry is fighting back, claiming that internships awarded to family members of foreign officials were not given with corrupt intent or were not of any value...