Corruption Crime & Compliance

In a far-reaching action, the Biden Administration elevated the global fight against corruption as a national security interest.  In an Executive Memorandum, the Biden Administration made a strong statement against corruption, citing the devastating impact that corruption has on democratic institutions, democratic governments, economic development, and other public interest objectives.  The Admini...

LRN and NAVEX Global recently released two important annual surveys.  LRN issues a yearly report on ethics and compliance program effectiveness.  NAVEX Global issues an important annual report on incident management trends based on its large database of hotline data. In this Episode, Michael Volkov review these two reports and the important ethics and compliance trends. The NAVEX Global report can...

The ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline demonstrated yet again the failure of government and business to anticipate cybersecurity issues through traditional tools – risk and vulnerability analysis, implementation of technology and planning to minimize a cyber event, and crisis response protocol.  In the aftermath of this debacle, the public lined up to purchase gallons of gasoline because of a...

The Biden Administration is expected to increase antitrust enforcement against criminal cartels and bid-rigging conspiracies.  Global companies have to address this significant risk by implementing a compliance program that meets the Justice Department's 2019 Guidance on Antirust Compliance Programs. In this Episode, Michael Volkov reviews the Antitrust Division's Guidance and compliance program r...

The Justice Department and the SEC have a long history of focusing FCPA enforcement on pharmaceutical and medical device companies.  Starting with a broad "industry sweep" nearly a decade ago, DOJ and the SEC have brought numerous enforcement actions.  In response, drug and device companies have attempted to implement effective compliance programs. In this Episode, Mike Volkov discusses FCPA enfor...

Compliance programs are rapidly evolving.  One of the key drives of this transformation is the increased reliance on automated compliance functions that generate substantial data.  Relying on data analytic strategies, compliance officers are quickly identifying key ares for measurement, monitoring and assessment as an important means to intervene and prevent serious misconduct. In this Episode, Mi...

In a precedent-setting agreement, the Justice Department, OFAC and the Bureau of Industry Security announced a settlement with SAP SE for more than $8 million for numerous violations of the Iran Sanctions program. While the Justice Department’s National Security Division (“NSD”) has settled prior export control and sanctions cases against corporations for violations of the North Korea Sanctions pr...

Chad Main is the Founder of Percipient, a legal and compliance technology firm.  Chad joins Michael Volkov for a discussion of current legal and compliance technology trends. Chad provides helpful advice on use of technology in compliance programs and functions.

Last week, the Biden Administration announced new and significant trade sanctions against Russia. The action was long expected given the Biden Administration’s criticism of Russia, and was a comprehensive response to Russia’s interference in the 2020 US election, its SolarWinds cyberattack and its ongoing occupation of Crimea and threatening addition of troops along the Ukraine border. Over the la...

ESG is a new and important part of the corporate governance landscape.  Prosecutors and regulatory agencies are quickly adding ESG to their lexicon. The real question for every organization is “what are you doing to address it?”  ESG is a terrific opportunity to leverage an organization’s corporate culture to address a broad set of values beyond ESG principles. In this Episode, Michael Volkov disc...

In the new Biden Administration, companies should expect aggressive enforcement of trade sanctions.  At the same time, in response to Russian aggression and the Solar Winds cyber-attack, OFAC is likely to implement new and even more restrictive sanctions against Russia.  In anticipation, companies should elevate the importance of their sanctions compliance programs (SCPs) pursuant to the May 2019...

Boeing’s long and tragic scandal surrounding its 737 MAX safety concerns and FAA disclosure violations has come to an end.  DOJ announced a settlement early this year, on January 7, 2021, which included a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in exchange for total payments of $2.5 billion, consisting of: a $243.6 million criminal penalty, $1.77 billion in compensation to its airline cust...

The Ethics & Compliance Initiative recently released its 2021 Global Business Ethics Survey.  The GBES is an insightful and important survey. The link to the report is https://www.ethics.org/just-released-2021-global-business-ethics-survey-report/. In this Episode, Michael Volkov interviews Pat Harned about the results and the important findings.

Mike Volkov interviews Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Manager and Compliance Consultant at the Volkov Law Group, concerning trade compliance and anti-boycott issues. Alex specializes in corporate risk assessments, evaluation of general compliance programs, and the remediation of compliance deficiencies. He also specializes in trade (export) compliance and is familiar with a broad range of issues arising...

Each year, Michael Volkov reviews current trends concerning the state of the chief Compliance Officer.  As we witness the continuing growth in stature of the CCO, it is important to exercise caution and realistically evaluate future trends and concerns.

Deutsche Bank, the infamous German bank connected to former President Trump, settled FCPA and fraud cases with the Justice Department and the SEC, and agreed to pay a total of $130 million. In this Episode, Michael Review reviews the Deutsche Bank settlement.

Four years ago, in 2016, the Antitrust Division and FTC issued guidance as to the application of antitrust laws to no-poaching and wage-fixing agreements between employers.  The guidance stated, “Going forward, the Justice Departments intends to criminally investigate naked no-poaching or wage-fixing agreements that are unrelated or unnecessary to a larger legitimate collaboration between the empl...

Matt Stankiewicz, Managing Counsel, The Volkov Law Group, and Michael Volkov discuss the latest events and trends within the cryptocurrency industry. Several major enforcement actions have hit the news recently, such as the CFTC’s case against BitMEX and the SEC’s high-profile action against Ripple and its XRP cryptocurrency.  We also discuss potential regulatory movement under the Biden Administr...

Jessica Sanderson, Partner, The Volkov Law Group and Michael Volkov review significant developments in the civil False Claims Act (“FCA”) area from the past year. With mind-boggling federal spending in FY 2020 and the obvious potential for fraud, abuse, and misuse of the trillions of dollars of federal stimulus funds, we undoubtedly will see a considerable increase in FCA audits, investigations, e...

President Biden has nominated Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco to head the U.S Department of Justice.  In addition, the Biden Administration has nominated a number of strong enforcement candidates to head up various regulatory agencies.  The implications of this new team across the government will be significant on various industry sectors. Tom Fox joins Mike Volkov to discuss the new Justice Depar...

Congress enacted The Corporate Transparency Act, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.  The CTA expands beneficial ownership disclosure requirements for US entities.  The new disclosure requirements target shell companies and small businesses to ensure disclosure beneficial ownership information. Liz Slim, Senior Counsel at The Volkov Law Group, interviews Scott Greytak from Transpare...

Despite the challenges facing OFAC during the pandemic and the strain on resources, OFAC continued its dogged commitment to sanctions enforcement.  While the numbers racked up by OFAC were lower because of the pandemic, OFAC later in the year resumed its aggressive pace of sanctions enforcement.  It even released two enforcement actions during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. In this Epi...

The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission had another record year of enforcement.  In fact, the last four years of FCPA enforcement included two years of record enforcement – 2019 and 2020.  After those two years, 2016, 2014, 2010 were larger enforcement years (as measured by total fines) than 2017 and 2018, the first two years of FCPA enforcement under the Trump Administra...

The Justice Department continues to produce FCPA resolutions in a record year for enforcement.  The latest is DOJ’s settlement with Vitol, Inc. (Vitol), an energy trading company. DOJ agreed to a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in exchange for a criminal penalty of $135 million.  One-third of the payment, or $45 million, would be credited if Vitol pays $45 million to Brazil prosecu...

Companies have to implement a sanctions compliance program (SCP). The Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control’s sanctions guidance issued in May 2019 is an extraordinary document and includes numerous prescriptive requirements.  Companies ignore the SCP Guidance at their peril. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) has a robust and mature enforcement program....