Compliance Perspectives: Volkswagen's Transformation
Daily Compliance News: March 3, 2020, the Devil’s Advocate edition
Compliance into the Weeds-Episode 62, Sentencing of VW Employee Oliver Schmidt
Day 20: What Does Innovation in Compliance Look Like?
In order to comply with European antitrust rulings against it earlier this year, Google announced that for the first time it will begin charging telephone handset manufacturers to install Gmail, Google Maps, and other popular...more
Markets took a beating yesterday, with investors apparently put off by tech stocks, tensions with China, a recent jump in interest rates and government bond yields, and a tightening Fed monetary policy....more
We all know the saying – A fish rots from the head. Sometimes a clear and simple statement says it all. The Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal is yet another example of C-Suite, even CEO, misconduct....more
A federal jury in Brooklyn has found former HSBC Holdings exec Mark Johnson guilty on 9 counts of front-running that grew out of the DOJ’s investigation into forex manipulation at HSBC....more
Local governments and businesses considering investments in clean transportation projects may find funding opportunities resulting from partial settlements in the Volkswagen “clean diesel” emissions litigation. The U.S....more
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the federal district court in the Volkswagen “clean diesel” emissions litigation to approve a long-awaited environmental mitigation trust agreement. The approval of the trust agreement...more
So much for the quiet off-ramping for SoFi’s Mike Cagney. The fintech company’s board announced on Friday that Cagney is out immediately as CEO, not at the end of the year as Cagney had announced earlier in the week....more
The Justice Department’s continuing lack of individual criminal prosecutions in the FCPA arena continues to raise serious questions. DOJ’s issuance of the Yates memorandum was seen as a new and important reiteration of DOJ’s...more
When Regulatory Failings Turn Criminal: Car Edition Redux - Why it matters: To paraphrase the famous quote from the film “All About Eve”: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy car ride. In the first part of...more
When unraveling a major corporate scandal, especially multi-year schemes involving senior executives, the blame game or lessons learned approach can easily turn into a fruitless exercise. The VA and Takata scandals are...more
One of three counts in Volkswagen’s recent $4.3 billion guilty-plea was for obstruction of justice arising from a litigation-hold botched by house counsel. As VW prepared to admit the defeat-device problems to US...more
Corporate misconduct occurs in a variety of forms. Starting with the basic truism – companies act through people, and when companies engage in misconduct it requires the coordination and collaboration of multiple actors. The...more
The emissions cheating scandal that recently cost VW $4.3 billion and a mess of criminal indictments isn’t, it seems, confined to the Germans. We heard months ago about a similar probe into Mitsubishi, and yesterday we...more
Some early signs of the focus of SoftBank’s “hugely ambitious” $100 billion investment fund are beginning to emerge, and at first blush, it appears a majority of the cash will land in private and public markets rather than...more
Last week, the Justice Department reported a guilty plea in the VW emissions scandal prosecution. By this one announcement, DOJ signaled that it is planning to build a bigger case against VW. Ironically, the Justice...more
We’ve heard about VW’s $15 billion settlement to resolve US claims by owners and regulators, but a spate of recent state AG-led actions shows that the fallout from the emissions cheating scandal is far from over. NY, MA, and...more
VW Will Pay $14.7B in Largest FTC False Ad Suit - Volkswagen made a $14.7 billion deal with the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the California Attorney General over charges that the auto...more
Today I continue my exploration of the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916. Daniel Todman writing in the Financial Times (FT), in an article entitled “Stories of the Somme”, insightfully noted that for all the...more
Tris Coffin heads the Vermont Volkswagen Class Action litigation team at DRM that also includes Directors Bob Luce and Marc Heath. On the evening of April 20, a number of news outlets published stories that Volkswagen...more
There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it’s all dark.” If you went to college in the 70s or 80s (or maybe even the 90s) you know what the next album is, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. For in the...more
Welcome back my friend; To the show that never ends. Except it did last week, when Keith Emerson died. He was the Emerson in Emerson, Lake & Palmer aka ELP. Emerson was one of the greatest keyboardists of his or any...more
Whom to suspend during any Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigation is always a delicate question to answer. Unfortunately there is never an easy answer. As the Volkswagen (VW) emission-testing scandal continues to...more
Sometimes the simplest visual can provide the greatest insight about transformation. I had that particular insight when I recently had the chance to catch up with Scott Lane, Chief Executive of the Red Flag Group, at the SCCE...more
Today, I wrap up my series on why I think compliance is at the Tipping Point. However as it is a Friday in October, I continue my tribute to the Man in the Shadows, producer Val Lewton, whose films for RKO had some of the...more
I continue my series on why I believe that compliance is at the ‘Tipping Point’ with a discussion of the Volkswagen (VW) emissions-testing scandal and its effect on the greater compliance world. Myself and many other...more