The Justice Insiders Podcast: Crime & Punishment - Part 2
The Justice Insiders: FIFA Corruption Trial – Will the Feds Score Another Goal?
Episode 119 -- The Ericsson FCPA Settlement
Episode 116 -- Alstom Executive Convicted of FCPA and Money Laundering Offenses
Sigma-Aldrich, Inc., d/b/a MilliporeSigma (“MilliporeSigma”), a U.S. life sciences company based in Massachusetts, escaped criminal charges for export control violations, despite a former sales person’s scheme to illegally...more
Defendants often face a tough choice — challenge the government’s evidence and if convicted, face significant jail time. On the flip side, defendants who plead guilty and cooperate can earn significant sentencing reductions,...more
On the heels of the Gunvor FCPA settlement for $661 million, DOJ announced its settlement with Trafigura, the latest commodities trading company to fall under DOJ’s FCPA Sweep against the industry. Trafigura joined the list...more
It is challenging for law enforcement to track down and trace illicit activities conducted through digital currencies. The process can be very time- and resource-intensive. Further, securing charges and arrests, and...more
You have to give the Justice Department credit — after two slow enforcement years, DOJ is starting off 2024 with a relative “bang;” first, DOJ reached a large settlement with SAP in January, and now, DOJ has reached a...more
We continue our exploration of the resolution of the FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm Gunvor S.A. The enforcement action came in with a $661 million penalty against the company, which has pleaded...more
In March 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the resolution of a FCPA enforcement action involving the Swiss trading firm Gunvor S.A. The enforcement action comes in with a $661 million penalty against the...more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has been very active in the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) / Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) space, as reflected by a recent series of individual prosecutions and corporate non-prosecution agreements...more
On November 21, 2023, The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced settlement agreements with Binance Holdings Limited (“Binance”), the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Changpeng Zhao (affectionally known as...more
As the world now knows, Binance Holdings Limited, doing business as Binance.com (“Binance” or the “Company”), has entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)....more
Earlier this month, John Can Unsalan, the president of a steel-making company with ties to Russian oligarchs, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, based on financial transactions committed with...more
In February 2022, we blogged on the seizure of a record $3.6 billion in stolen Bitcoin (“BTC”) and an accompanying criminal complaint, charging husband and wife Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan with...more
Polsinelli’s Government Investigations and Tax attorneys continue to follow the well-known Fisher case, the Department of Justice’s ("DOJ") first criminal indictment related to syndicated conservation easements. Walter...more
If there ever is an example of a rotten corporate culture, Wells Fargo sits at the head of the class. Since Wells Fargo’s sales pressure scandal, Wells Fargo has continued to suffer from a string of scandals and misconduct. ...more
On March 15, a Michigan-headquartered bank holding company agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud for filing misleading statements related to its 2017 initial public offering (IPO) and its 2018 and 2019 annual filings. ...more
Overview - A recent spate of cases on both sides of the Atlantic in 2023 show that criminal enforcement and asset recovery proceedings stemming from the iconic Brazilian anti-corruption investigation, Operation “Car Wash”...more
Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company, based in Sweden, settled its breach of its 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement, agreed to enter a guilty plea and pay a $206 million penalty. In 2019, Ericsson entered...more
The Justice Department has a long-record of criminal prosecutions of companies for manufacturing food products under unsanitary conditions. In recent years, DOJ has prosecuted Blue Bell Ice Cream, Chipotle, ConAgra Grocery,...more
DOJ closed out its FCPA enforcement year in 2022 with two significant settlements, the ABB and Honeywell cases. Aside from these two big settlements, there was a flurry of other actions in the last quarter of 2022....more
Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark, agreed to plead guilty to fraud and paid $2 billion to settle long-standing anti-money laundering and fraud violations stemming from its banking operations in Estonia. Danske Bank...more
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division recently secured its first criminal conviction for a labor-side violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act after VDA OC LLC (VDA) entered a guilty plea....more
The Justice Department’s new Corporate Enforcement Policy and the heightened enforcement and compliance expectations were put to the test in its announcement of a $315 million settlement of bribery charges with ABB, a...more
In October, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division announced its first criminal attempted monopolization charges in more than 40 years. In the case, U.S. v. Zito, Nathan Nephi Zito, the owner of a Montana paving...more
On October 31, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) delivered on its promise to pursue criminal enforcement of Section 2 of the Sherman Act when it secured a guilty plea from a highway paving...more
In yet another indication of the renewed, aggressive antitrust enforcement program, the Justice Department recently announced the first attempted criminal monopolization case in decades — Nathan Nephi Zito, the president of a...more