PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) recently secured its first forfeiture of sanctioned funds. This was a landmark achievement for the NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, which has only existed since 2022 and aims to...more
The U.S. Supreme Court decided two cases yesterday, in each of which timing played a decisive role in the outcome. These cases did not produce the unanimity that has characterized most of the Court’s decisions so far this...more
On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Minnesota county’s retention of the excess proceeds from sale of a homeowner’s property to satisfy a tax lien violated the Takings Clause. This decision recognizes that...more
For years, tension has existed between federal and state criminal prosecutors over forfeitures. Criminal forfeitures result from the seizure (and, if necessary, the sale) of contraband such as cash from illegal activities or...more
Alongside the slew of new sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration also has been laying the groundwork to maximize the impact of those sanctions. Just days after Russian military...more
Over the past week, the U.S., UK, and EU imposed sweeping sanctions rolled out by the US, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, outlined here. Also last week, the Department of Justice announced the launch of Task...more
This week, the Court confronted constitutional challenges to a California statute altering the test for determining whether workers are employees or independent contractors and an Arizona statute governing civil forfeitures. ...more
On January 13, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) issued a new Withhold Release Order (“WRO”) under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on all cotton products and tomato products from the entire Xinjiang region of...more
A recent decision by the International Trade Commission (ITC) to temporarily rescind a seizure and forfeiture order after the Court of International Trade (CIT) granted summary judgment of non-infringement for certain...more
Compliance Today (November 2019) - On September 6, 2019, the US Department of Justice announced in a press release, “The owner and chief executive officer (CEO) of a telemedicine company pleaded guilty today for his role...more
Proposed Legislation Creates Rewards Program for Whistleblowers of Foreign Government Corruption - Third Post in a Three-Post Series - Newly proposed legislation, if passed, will authorize a whistleblower program for...more
In an earlier article, I detailed how the DOJ has focused its attention on the aggressive investigation and prosecution of “pill mill” cases. In this article, I discuss the consequences physicians and other medical...more
In 2017, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) reported more than $8.2 billion held in its forfeited-assets fund, which is a $600 million increase from the $7.6 billion in the fund in 2016. The cases brought by the government in...more
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced a new Department of Justice policy regarding the federal adoption of assets seized by state or local law enforcement under state law. The new policy, issued on July 19, 2017, is...more
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the United States Department of Department ("DOJ") is returning to its past practice of aggressively pursuing asset forfeiture cases and sharing the proceeds of those...more
In this post, we consider the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General report (OIG Report), released on March 29, 2017, evaluating the DOJ’s oversight of its cash seizure and forfeiture operations. This...more
The field of forfeiture saw significant action in 2016. The IRS offered to return forfeited funds used in structuring, but Congress still may clip its ability to forfeit such funds. Meanwhile, DOJ renewed a controversial...more
This issue of Skadden’s semiannual Cross-Border Investigations Update looks at Brexit’s impact on corporate crime and investigations, the U.S. DOJ’s increased use of forfeiture actions with international implications, current...more
The “Restraining Excessive Seizure of Property through the Exploitation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Tools Act” (tortuously abbreviated as the RESPECT Act) (H.R. 5523) continues to make its way through Congress, with a markup ...more
On December 21, 2015 the United States Department of Justice suspended the Equitable Sharing Program in which state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies can obtain a portion of the assets they have seized (either as...more
In May of last year we highlighted the decision by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina to dismiss a forfeiture case he’d brought against Lyndon McLellan, the owner of a small convenience...more
Christmas came early to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies in the United States; and it came in the form of a lump of coal. On December 21, 2015, Kendall Day, Chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Asset...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently issued a memorandum ("The Yates memo") on September 9, 2015 by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, reaffirming the Government's commitment to prosecuting individuals. Say...more