In 2012 and 2013, while James Snyder was the mayor of Portage, Indiana, the city purchased garbage trucks from local trucking company Great Lakes Peterbilt for roughly $1.1 million....more
Director of Enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) Gurbir Grewal warns of the risks surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) related disclosures and puts investment advisers and public...more
Under the newly announced pilot program, individuals who fully cooperate and voluntarily provide the Criminal Division with information on certain types of corporate and white-collar offenses may receive an NPA in exchange...more
The newly announced whistleblower policy gives certain individuals who promptly and completely cooperate with prosecutors the opportunity to receive a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for their information....more
Adding to federal prosecutors’ tool kit in fighting global corruption, on December 14, 2023, Congress passed with bipartisan support, the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA). As part of the National Defense Authorization...more
1/5/2024
/ Amended Legislation ,
Biden Administration ,
Bribery ,
Compliance ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Liability ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Extortion ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Foreign Official ,
Jurisdiction ,
National Security ,
NDAA ,
Public Officials ,
Transparency
For years, regulators have emphasized that the starting point for maintaining an effective compliance program is understanding the particular risks the company faces. According to Munter, this same concept applies to...more
The settlements announced by the SEC and CFTC on Monday are a continuation of the regulators’ focus on off-channel communications by employees of registered entities....more
8/11/2023
/ Books & Records ,
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) ,
Broker-Dealer ,
CFTC ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) ,
Data Preservation ,
Data Retention ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hedge Funds ,
Mobile Apps ,
Private Equity ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Settlement ,
Swap Dealers
On May 1, 2023, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS or Department) issued a consent order (Consent Order), imposing a $1.2 million fine on bitFlyer USA, a cryptocurrency trading platform and custodial...more
5/17/2023
/ BitLicense ,
Compliance ,
Consent Order ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Cybersecurity ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Financial Regulatory Agencies ,
Licenses ,
Licensing Rules ,
NYDFS
As discussed in our alert following the oral argument in this case, in Ciminelli v. United States, a construction company executive named Louis Ciminelli appealed his wire fraud conviction in connection with bid rigging...more
On March 29, Gensler testified before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee during a hearing on the SEC’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Justification Annual Performance...more
In a March 3 speech at the ABA’s Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime, Kenneth Polite, chief of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, announced that the Criminal Division’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (the...more
On March 15, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department) launched a three-year Compensation Incentives and Clawbacks Pilot Program (Clawback Program) intended to incentivize companies to create more robust...more
3/30/2023
/ Chief Compliance Officers ,
Clawbacks ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Crimes ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Executive Compensation ,
Incentives ,
Pilot Programs ,
Preemption ,
Section 10D ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Monaco’s and Polite’s remarks, and the DOJ’s new policies and guidance, come amid the Department’s increasingly tough on corporate crime approach and emphasis on rewarding companies that have effective compliance programs...more
3/7/2023
/ Chief Compliance Officers ,
Compliance ,
Compliance Monitoring ,
Cooperation ,
Corporate Crimes ,
Corporate Culture ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Executive Compensation ,
Monaco Memo ,
Self-Disclosure Requirements
Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department) announced the immediate implementation of a new Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (the Policy), setting a nationwide standard for how U.S Attorneys’ Offices will...more
Seeking to protect critical U.S. technological assets from being acquired or used by nation-state adversaries, last week Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the launch of the Disruptive Technology Strike Force....more
As one of its last acts of 2022, Congress aimed to close loopholes in the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA) that left it unclear how and how much whistleblowers would be paid. On Dec. 23, 2022, Congress passed the...more
On Jan. 17, AAG Polite announced “the first significant changes” to the CEP since 2017. The policy revisions will apply to all corporate criminal matters handled by the Criminal Division and offer companies “new, significant,...more
1/30/2023
/ Amended Regulation ,
Anti-Corruption ,
Chief Compliance Officers ,
Compliance ,
Cooperation ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Penalties ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy (CEP) ,
Remediation ,
Self-Reporting ,
White Collar Crimes
The 2023 Report on FINRA’s Examination and Risk Monitoring Program was published on Jan. 10, 2023. In a statement accompanying the Report, Greg Ruppert, executive vice president of FINRA’s Member Supervision organization,...more
1/19/2023
/ Annual Reports ,
Anti-Money Laundering ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Compliance ,
Cybersecurity ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Fraud ,
Internal Reporting ,
Investment Adviser ,
Market Manipulation ,
Risk Management
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of various federal criminal fraud statutes. For example, in McDonnell v. United States, the Court overturned the honest services fraud conviction of the former...more
12/23/2022
/ Bid Rigging ,
Bribery ,
Chris Christie ,
Construction Industry ,
Criminal Code ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Fraud ,
Government Officials ,
Insider Trading ,
Right to Control ,
SCOTUS ,
Wire Fraud
The compliance certification policy was first announced by Assistant Attorney General (Assistant AG) Kenneth Polite in March 2022, when he stated that for all criminal division “corporate resolutions (including guilty pleas,...more
10/21/2022
/ Certification Requirements ,
Certifications ,
Chief Compliance Officers ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Crimes ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Deferred Prosecution Agreements ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Non-Prosecution Agreements ,
Plea Agreements
In prepared remarks delivered at New York University School of Law on Sept. 15, Deputy AG Monaco announced significant updates to the DOJ’s corporate criminal enforcement policies.
Deputy AG Monaco’s announcement...more
9/21/2022
/ Compliance ,
Compliance Monitoring ,
Corporate Crimes ,
Corporate Culture ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Corporate Monitoring ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Personal Liability ,
Voluntary Disclosure ,
White Collar Crimes
On Oct. 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the creation of a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to tackle investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency. As the non-fungible...more
8/31/2022
/ Bribery ,
Counterfeiting ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Authority ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Fraud ,
Insider Trading ,
Market Manipulation ,
Money Laundering ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Spoofing
Cryptocurrency and digital assets have kept the courts and regulators busy as digital assets continue to pose new questions and challenges for anyone involved in their sale, trade or development. The following trends have...more
8/26/2022
/ CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Wallets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fraud ,
Indictments ,
Insider Trading ,
IRS ,
John Doe Investigation ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Service of Process ,
Tax Evasion
On Jan. 1, 2021, Congress passed the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA) which expanded the definition of “financial institution” to impose anti-money laundering (AML) requirements on persons “engaged in the trade of...more
2/14/2022
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Art Auctions ,
Art Galleries ,
Financial Institutions ,
FinCEN ,
Fine Art ,
Market Participants ,
Museums ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Online Marketplace ,
U.S. Treasury
Key Takeaways - Corporate enforcement and individual accountability are high priorities for new DOJ Criminal Division head Kenneth Polite. Companies should be proactive in implementing, monitoring, and improving their...more