Season 2 - Episode 2 - A Whistleblowers Nightmare: The Uncovering of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad Scandal
Kidon IP War Stories David Cohen & Guan Huat Khoo
On January 30, 2024, Transparency International (TI) published its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2023. The 2023 CPI suggests there has been limited progress in the global fight against corruption, with TI...more
The end of the road for Roger Ng, the Goldman Sachs Investment Banker, who played a critical role in the Goldman Sachs 1 MDB Malaysia scandal, was not a pretty one. District Judge Margo Brodie gave Ng a severe sentence of...more
The scandal emanating from the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad fund (1MDB) continues to ripple through criminal law enforcement and criminal prosecutions. ...more
Bear with me for a second, but remember Presidential Candidate Romney’s statement in 2011 that “Corporations are people.” Starting with that premise, my so-called “Person” of the Year award for 2020 goes to, drumroll . . ....more
The breadth of Goldman Sachs’ corruption in the recent DOJ and SEC FCPA enforcement action underscored the important global goal of reducing corruption. It goes without saying – corruption has a pernicious impact on economic...more
On October 22, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the coordinated $2.9 billion resolution of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action against The...more
Goldman Sachs now sits atop all charts with the largest US FCPA bribery penalty, totaling approximately $2.9 billion. The second largest is Ericsson’s 2019 FCPA settlement for $1 billion....more
The Justice Department finally closed out its investigation of Goldman Sachs’ massive bribery scheme involving Malaysia’s 1MDB fund. The case is now the largest in US FCPA history (based on its payment to DOJ and related US...more
Last week, Airbus SE (Airbus) settled a long-standing corruption scandal by agreeing to enforcement actions in three countries; France, the United Kingdom and the US. The matter involved a massive, worldwide, long running...more
It is time to break out the crystal ball for FCPA 2020 Predictions. In preparing for this, I always rely on my past admiration of Carnac the Magnificent....more
CEP Magazine (January 2020) - The U.S. Department of Justice announced[1] a settlement of a civil forfeiture case against Low Take Jho, known as Jho Low, regarding assets allegedly bought with funds stolen from the...more
Goldman Sachs is reportedly in negotiations with federal prosecutors to resolve claims about its role in the Malaysian 1MDB scandal for upwards of $2 billion. A settlement—which “could include a guilty plea from Goldman’s...more
I thought Frosty was a good analogy to consider the disgraced Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s former partner Tim Leissner, as he is certainly back again. Yesterday, I begin a two-part blog post series on Leissner’s settlement with...more
The Grinch is certainly a title that could be an allegory with disgraced Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s former partner Tim Leissner about now. He was the lead Goldman Sachs banker who facilitated the firm’s work on bond offerings...more
Settlement Applies to $700 Million in Luxury Assets; Law Firms Obtain a Carve-Out - Last week, the Justice Department announced a massive settlement in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (“1MDB”) case, a matter implicating...more
As reported by Byron Tau and Aruna Viswanatha in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Jho Low, the businessman-turned-fugitive accused of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud involving Malaysia’s sovereign-wealth fund, agreed...more
On 22 July 2019, the Securities Commission Malaysia (the “Securities Commission”) announced that it would implement an action plan to strengthen standards of corporate governance to prevent corruption, misconduct and fraud in...more
In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below some of the most important international anti-corruption developments from the past month, with links to primary...more
This one is for all you rock and roll mavens out there. Can you name the only instrumental song which was banned from radio play? That is correct, a song with no lyrics was banned as being “too subversive”. It is of course,...more
A former banker has agreed to forfeit $43.7 million and has pled guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations and money laundering in one of the largest individual FCPA enforcement cases to date. The two-count...more
Wyatt Earp died this week. Not the original Wyatt Earp who died in 1929 but the Wyatt Earp of my lifetime, who was actor Hugh O’Brian. O’Brien portrayed Earp in the long running television series Wyatt Earp which ran in the...more