Life is always filled with surprises.  Just when we thought 2023 was a “slow” FCPA enforcement year, DOJ and SEC announced a large enforcement action against SAP for approximately $220 million for FCPA violations in South Africa, and Indonesia.  The SEC’s enforcement action for $98 million includes SAP FCPA violations in Greater Africa and Azerbaijan. SAP is no stranger to U.S, enforcement agencies.  In 2021,...

On September 29, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged several firms with recordkeeping failures. These recordkeeping failures relate to pervasive and longstanding off-channel communications.  Generally, all of these actions relate to the widespread use of various messaging apps that ultimately violate SEC requirements and circumvent internal corporate controls.  These are the latest enforcement actions in a string of similar penalties by the SEC...

Albemarle Corporation (Albemarle), a specialty chemicals manufacturing company located in Charlotte, North Carolina, agreed to pay more than $218 million to settle FCPA investigations with DOJ and the SEC stemming from bribery payments in Vietnam, Indonesia and India. Albemarle entered into a three-year non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with DOJ and agreed to pay a penalty of approximately $98.2 million and an administrative forfeiture of approximately $98.5...

On July 31, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) formally charged the enigmatic crypto-personality Richard Heart (whose real name, as I learned from the complaint, is Richard Schueler) and his three entities—Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX—with conducting unregistered offerings of crypto asset securities.  These securities offerings and sales raised more than $1 billion in funds from U.S. investors and investors abroad.  The SEC further charged...

You can always learn a lot from reviewing the underlying conduct to an FCPA enforcement action.  Chief compliance officers can identify specific risk factors, mitigation steps and root causes for bribery schemes. The Corficocolombiana (“Corfico”) FCPA settlement underscores the significant risks when companies participate in large projects in foreign countries.  Between 2012 and 2015, Corfico paid more than $23 million in bribes to high-ranking Colombian...

The Department of Justice has been relatively quiet this year in bringing corporate FCPA enforcement actions and settlements.  Aside from the Ericsson breach of its Deferred Prosecution Agreement, the Corficocolombiana (“Corfico”) and Grupo Aval settlement is the first in 2023 involving a corporate FCPA resolution.  For the SEC, the Corfico and Grupo Aval settlement is the sixth corporate resolution in 2023. Corfico is a subsidiary...

Matt Stankiewicz, Partner at The Volkov Law Group, joins us for another post detailing the SEC’s suit against Coinbase. Matt can be contacted at [email protected]. On June 6, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) officially filed suit against Coinbase, Inc. (“Coinbase”) alleging the company operated as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.  The SEC is also suing Coinbase for failing to...