Episode 66 -- Gifts and Hospitality Compliance and Best Practices
Day 11 of One Month to More Effective Internal Controls-Internal Controls for Gifts, Travel and Entertainment
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 165-BHP FCPA Enforcement and Lessons Learned for the Compliance Practitioner
If one were to reflect upon the providing of gifts and business entertainment to foreign governmental officials, one might reasonably conclude that after 40 years of the FCPA, companies might follow its prescriptions...more
Herbalife’s FCPA settlement is another one for books – the wreckage left includes two criminal indictments for Chinese officials who may never be apprehended, along with $123 million in penalties....more
- A tone-at-the-top business culture with CEO leadership is a critical component of effective anti-corruption and anti-bribery policy implementation. - CEO leadership helps set an example for lower management and company...more
On July 3, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) jointly released the second edition of the “Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” which was...more
On December 6, 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to resolve allegations that multinational telecommunications company Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Ericsson or...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
Last week, DOJ announced the indictment of two former Herbalife executives in China for participating in a bribery scheme over a ten-year period. Herbalife, a multi-level marketing company, was not charged and its...more
On September 4, 2019 the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $15.4 million settlement with pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt ARD LLC (Mallinckrodt) to resolve alleged violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) in two...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently resolved two health care fraud cases – one criminal and one civil – that demonstrate the government’s continued scrutiny of lavish meals and “speaker’s bureaus” sponsored by...more
My question appears to be fairly obvious, right? This is not a question or a quiz of every chief compliance officer. Rather, this is a question for everyone but the CCO and compliance and legal staff. Think about it....more
Sometimes I get inspired when writing blog posts and sometimes I get on a roll. It is a bit of both this week and today, as previously this week, I have focused on Department of Justice (DOJ) pronouncements on their view of...more
It certainly did not take long for companies to see the benefit of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Pilot Program around FCPA enforcement as this week there where two public declinations...more
A recent case illustrates both the ongoing corruption risks for U.S. companies doing business in developing countries such as China and the Government’s tougher stance on settling white collar crime cases. In this case, the...more
PTC, a Massachusetts software company, reached settlements with the SEC and DOJ last week for FCPA violations for a total of $28 million. Interestingly, the SEC announced a DPA with a PTC official who assisted in the...more
In 2015, the Department of Justice (DOJ) made more news for the corporate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases that it did not bring than for the two that it did bring: Nine times last year, DOJ declined to join...more
I have been exploring the PTC Inc. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) settlement this week. It included a Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA) from the Department of Justice (DOJ) with two Chinese subsidiaries and a Cease and...more
The Commission filed two settled FCPA cases this week. On was resolved with the payment of almost $800 million to the SEC, DOJ and Dutch regulators where about $114 million in bribes were paid. The other centered on the...more
Yesterday I began a (now) three-part series on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions involving PTC Inc. (PTC), Parametric Technology (Shanghai) Software Co. Ltd. and Parametric Technology (Hong Kong)...more
Travel, entertainment and gifts tied to inadequate controls are recurrent themes in FCPA cases. Many of these cases involve the use of agents and center in China. Each of these recurrent items appear in the most recent FCPA...more
Sometimes you have to wonder just how long it will take before US companies realize (1) there is a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and (2) it applies in China as yesterday both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and...more
In planning that trip to promote your products and to qualify under the FCPA affirmative defense of reasonable and bona fide expenditures, whatever you do, DO NOT take any foreign officials to Disneyland. On February 4, 2016,...more
Why it matters: Since our last newsletter, a lot has been going on in white collar enforcement… so much so that we decided to devote an entire newsletter to it. It was a month of superlatives. The DOJ and the SEC announced...more
Regulatory Developments - NYDFS Announces Approval of First BitLicense Application from a Virtual Currency Firm: The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced Sept. 22 that it has approved...more
In June 2015, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published revisions to their jointly issued A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Resource Guide, initially...more
Intuitively, Israeli companies and their directors would likely assume that their businesses are immune to investigation and the assessment of penalties by US regulators that are separated by a vast ocean and located more...more