This Week in FCPA-Episode 58, the Declination Edition
Weekly Brief: Lawyers Advised To Accept New Reality
Federal regulators moved this week to “ease oversight of Wall Street firms by scaling back two major mechanisms that were imposed to scrutinize big financial companies in the wake of the financial crisis.” ...more
GE—still in streamlining mode—agreed yesterday to sell its biopharma business to Danaher (current CEO Larry’s Culp’s former company, btw) for a reported $21.4 billion in the form of $21 billion in cash and $400 million in...more
The author who literally wrote the book on the Enron is warning that the next financial crisis is lurking underground—aka, fracking has “turned the energy world upside down,” and it’s pulled in a bunch of Wall Street along...more
Jobs report Friday! Here’s what to have in mind while you’re reviewing the numbers – Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch Apple officially hit the stupefying $1 trillion market cap mark yesterday, as its shares rose...more
More trouble for the embattled British PM Theresa May. We learned yesterday that Britain’s second-largest construction firm—Carillion—was forced into liquidation after amassing a staggering $1.35 billion in debt. The downfall...more
US regulators have given passing grades to the living wills for all 8 major US banks, a reversal from the April 2016 determination that 5 of the 8 had deficiencies in their bailout-prevention plans....more
Qatar’s response to its recent feud with its Persian Gulf neighbors is to “dramatically increase” its natural gas production—an “awkward time” to do so by most measures....more
When it comes to the big (tech) 5, investors are cheering on their massive gains even as they nervously look around the corner for the dreaded market correction....more
We learned pretty early on that VW wasn’t alone in employing emissions-cheating software to get around environmental regs. But until now, it’s borne the brunt of the bad press for its actions. Well, with Fiat Chrysler’s DOJ...more
SEC Chairman Nominee Advances: Jay Clayton took another step to becoming chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission when the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved his nomination for the...more
Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf admitted that the illegal sham-account-creation activity at the heart of its recent SEC fine may have begun earlier than first reported....more
On Tuesday, the SEC announced that Citigroup would pay $7 million and admit that it submitted “inaccurate trade data” to the Commission over a period of 15 years in order to resolve claims that it left out “thousands of...more
A putative class action filed last week is accusing 25 prominent banks—including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays—of “conspiring to rig the market for securities” sold by the US Treasury in their roles as primary...more
The UK's Serious Fraud Office announced that Jonathan James Mathew, Jay Vijay Merchant and Alex Julian Pabon had been convicted by a jury at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud for manipulation of the US Dollar...more
Even with US markets shrugging off the Brexit [maybe?] by the end of last week, the effects of the split are FAR from over. One recent ripple: Standard Life Investments UK Real Estate mutual fund—which invests in high-end...more
Big financial firm stress test results are out from the Fed later today, and though all banks proved up to the task of reserving enough capital (as reported last Friday), the economic downturn simulation that’s part of round...more
Tribune’s not only given a hard “no” to Gannett, but it’s got some new firepower (and capital) on its side thanks to a $70.5 million investment by Nant Capital—a group “founded by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire who has...more
Talk about a regulation with teeth. Within days of the Treasury Department announcing new rules meant to discourage corporate tax inversion deals, Pfizer and Allergan announced they were scrapping their planned $152 billion...more
The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority have recently been showing signs of gearing up for the new regime which is intended to have the effect of making senior bankers and other financial...more
On this day in 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born. To me, he was the greatest Man of Letters the US has produced. Probably like most of you all, I was introduced to Hemingway in high school through The Son Also Rises. It remains...more
There’s an eerie silence in the world of fraud prosecutions in the UK. A Libor trial is about to start, a FCA land banking prosecution is on trial at Southwark, but with reporting restrictions, and a couple of weeks ago David...more
If there is one industry that needs an ethics overhaul, it has to be the financial industry. The list of transgressions continues to grow – AML/sanctions, LIBOR, Foreign Exchange Currency Cartels and Market Manipulations,...more
In this Issue: - New Developments - U.S. Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Patent Agreements That Postpone the Sale of Generic Drugs Violate Antitrust Laws - Direct Purchasers Have Standing to Bring Antitrust...more
The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) is calculated daily by the British Banking Association (BBA) and published by Thomson Reuters. The rates are calculated by surveying the interbank borrowing costs of a panel of banks...more