FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 30-Interview with the FCPA Professor-Part 2
Last week, Albemarle Corporation (Albemarle), agreed to pay more than $218 million to resolve investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into violations of the...more
This week I am mining the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, for what they might mean for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...more
Sometimes you have to wonder if companies ever have figured out that they need to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by putting in place a compliance program that actually works. ...more
Can you hire a foreign official as your agent? Is a foreign official always a foreign official for the purposes of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)? Can a person be a foreign official yet not under a contract for...more
A basic compliance program control, which is often overlooked (or assumed to exist), is the requirement that a chief compliance officer and/or chief legal officer have the authority to stop a specific contract or business...more
The SEC announced last week a $5 million FCPA settlement with Vantage Drilling International (“Vantage”), a Texas-based offshore drilling company. ...more
We continue our Hunter S. Thompson themed week in honor of Michael Cohen and his Essential Consulting LLC entity. Today we honor Thompson’s alter ego Uncle Duke. For those who might not know just who Uncle Duke might be, you...more
We continue our Hunter S. Thompson themed week in honor of Michael Cohen and his Essential Consulting LLC entity and his work which he sardonically named “Project Sunlight”. There may not be a finer example of full Gonzo...more
I hope you were able to check out the first ever Compliance Into The Weeds emergency podcast, where Matt Kelly and myself took a look at some of the initial information which came out about the payments to the president’s...more
Compliance officers are trained to spot risks. They have an eagle eye and keen sensitivity. In some cases they have to overcome inaccurate designations – my favorite is a “PEP,” a politically exposed person. ...more
When you look back on the rise of the ethics and compliance profession, you cannot ignore the history of accomplishments. It is easy to minimize these accomplishments as a reaction to the government’s aggressive FCPA...more
The problem of human trafficking and smuggling is staggering when you consider the human impact behind the numbers. Human trafficking is a $30 billion industry annually. There are more people in slavery today than at any time...more
The first FCPA enforcement action for 2017 landed with very little fanfare. The SEC reached a settlement with Mondelez International for $13 million. The facts surround the hiring of an agent in India and the failure of...more
This week I have been exploring the General Cable Corporation (General Cable) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action. It was settled with the Department of Justice (DOJ) via a Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA)...more
What was one of the most tragic events in the history of rock and roll? High up on the list must rank the Altamont concert, held at Altamont Race Track on December 6, 1969. It was so bad that many people felt the 60s actually...more
We all face a number of risks every day. Yet, we do not respond to each and every risk. We engage in risk-ranking our responses. Some are more risk than others and some are more catastrophic than others. So, we engage in risk...more
I have to confess – I love the show Shark Tank. Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary, is my favorite Shark. Mr. Wonderful often reminds the contestants and other Sharks that the central issue in considering business proposals is –...more
This past July marked the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a period marked by sweeping changes to the regulatory and administrative environment in which financial...more
On July 17, 2015, Louis Berger International, Inc., a New Jersey-based construction management company, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the Department of Justice under which it agreed to pay a $17.1...more
This episode 30 is Part 2 of my interview with the FCPA Professor. ...more
Try to imagine what DaVinci said to himself when he painted his last brush stroke on the Mona Lisa. Or consider what Tolstoy muttered to himself when he put down his pen after writing the last word of War and Peace....more