Control of a Set-aside Entity
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 157-Training of Third Parties Under the FCPA
Polsinelli Podcast - An International Trade Issue That May Impact Your Business
Protecting IP Through Employment Law
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 91, Internal Controls for Third Parties Under the FCPA, Part II
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 63-Managing the Third Party Relationship Under the FCPA, Part I
The Albemarle FCPA enforcement action was announced at a good time. This year has been a slow year for DOJ’s FCPA enforcement program, although there are several months before the end of the year. The SEC, on the other hand,...more
Albemarle’s bribery schemes look and sound like text-book examples of third-party agents being paid high commissions as a way to funnel bribery payments to foreign officials at state-owned oil refineries. However, as usual,...more
The task of designing appropriate third-party sanctions controls requires reverse engineering of relevant caselaw, particularly, the Epsilon Electronics case, which I reviewed in Part I of this series, and the Department of...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 29, no. 28 (August 3, 2020) - The 2017 theft of an unencrypted laptop is at the heart of a new HIPAA settlement with Lifespan Health System Affiliated Covered Entity (Lifespan ACE) in Rhode...more
In today’s blog post, I want to look at some of the more unusual bribery schemes from Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions in 2019. Some of these schemes were not unusual but they were accomplished with...more
On December 6, 2019, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Ericsson or the Company), resolved long-running investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the...more
Last week the Justice Department (DOJ) announced a resolution of the long standing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action involving Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Ericsson), a multinational networking and...more
Ericsson’s FCPA settlement is in the books (not the books and records). But it casts a significant shadow across the FCPA landscape. A pervasive and systemic culture of bribery is defined to reflect senior executive...more
This week I have been considering the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, as was laid out in their Information. Most...more
The Walmart case, from a big picture standpoint, represents a serious warning to all global companies committed to rapid international growth. In the absence of a significant and sustained commitment to compliance, rapid...more
The long-awaited Walmart Inc. (Walmart) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action was announced last week. This massive case came in with multiple documents, a long list of instances of bribery and corruption, a...more
Next week, in a five-part podcast series sponsored by Affiliated Monitors, Inc. (AMI), I visit with Eric Feldman, Senior Vice President of AMI to consider the Department of Justice (DOJ) Evaluation of Corporate Compliance...more
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) world is littered with cases involving freight forwarders, brokers and agents in the shipping and express delivery arena....more
Believe it or not, but companies are still struggling with third-party risk management systems. I know this sounds hyper-critical but many companies continue to hang onto paper due diligence systems (sometimes with or...more
The SEC’s FCPA Unit had a good week last week – they announced a second FCPA settlement along with the Sanofi case. The latest to fall was United Technologies that agreed to pay $13.9 million for bribes paid by its elevator...more
If you do not manage the third-party relationship it can all go downhill very quickly and you might find yourself with a potential FCPA violation. Now the DOJ has explicitly adopted this approach as a key determination of...more
The first lesson for the compliance practitioner is that you should actually test your compliance program in high-risk/high-profile situations. The unfurling team likely did practice their unfurling regime but apparently...more
With a growing number of complex regulations and directives, the only thing that is constant right now in the regulatory environment is change. Supply chain leaders and compliance professionals alike continue to grapple with...more
Whether you are in the high-tech industry and managing your channel partners (i.e. third-party distribution network), the pharmaceutical and medical device industry managing a complex network of distributors and...more
The European concern Airbus has been in the news recently for corruption issues. According to an article in the Financial Times (FT), entitled “Airbus sued by middlemen fired following fraud inquiry”, its annual report lists...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Fraud Section recently published its "Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs" that lists 1) the topics it explores and 2) the questions it asks when it assesses the effectiveness of a...more
Today, I continue my exploration of Level III, deep dive due diligence, by discussing how this should be considered for third parties. I am joined this week by Candice Tal, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of...more
2016 was a banner year for global anti-corruption enforcement: the U.S. government set records in terms of both the number of FCPA actions brought and the total dollar amount of related fines. Meanwhile, governments from...more
On February 8, 2017, the United States Department of Justice ("DOJ") Fraud Section published a blueprint for assessing corporate compliance efforts, titled "Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs" ("Guidance"). It...more
Of the wide range of challenges that compliance officers face with third parties, my favorite is: who “owns” third-party risk management? The truth is that different people within the enterprise feel different types of pain...more