Today we welcome Ted Williams, Partner, Piper Alderman. Ted, can you share some of your background and experience? TW: Thank you, Richard, for the opportunity to engage with your community, and it was a pleasure to meet you in New York during my recent visit. Richard, I am a lawyer with 25 years’ international experience, having held partnerships in European and Australian law firms. I have a background in...

Last week Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell spoke at the SIFMA Compliance and Legal Society New York Regional Seminar. In this speech she discussed the new Department of Justice (DOJ) Compliance Counsel. While emphatically noting that this new position was not an explicit or even tacit recognition of a compliance defense, Caldwell did state that DOJ lawyers are prosecutors and not compliance professionals...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor This post summarizes two recent speeches by DOJ/SEC enforcement officials that touched upon topics relevant to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement. In the first speech , Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, speaking at a financial industry event, focused her comments on compliance and the DOJ’s new compliance attorney position. ...

Fred Thompson died this week. He had a long and distinguished government career including working in the Senate Watergate Committee as a staffer. Thompson was credited for coming up with the signature question from the Watergate hearings, uttered by then Tennessee Senator Howard Baker who asked, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” It was Thompson who asked the query to former White House...

Congratulations to the Kansas City Royals for winning the World Series on Sunday night. Watching a franchise that has never won such a championship, I can certainly understand the elation of a team that had not been to a World Series in 30 years. There were a couple of things in the 9 th inning that I found interesting. The first was Mets Manager Terry Collins decision to keep starting pitcher Matt Harvey in the game...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor Scrutiny alerts and updates, civil litigation updates, SEC enforcement statistics, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup. Scrutiny Alerts and Updates Millicom The telecom and media company headquartered in Luxembourg with shares traded over the counter (OTC) in the U.S. recently disclosed : “Millicom …...

Maureen O’Hara died this week. To anyone who has ever watched The Quiet Man on St. Patrick’s Day, she will always be known as Mary Kate Danaher, who was pursued and eventually wed by John Wayne. Testament to the fiery character she often played, O’Hara refuses to consummate her marriage to Wayne until he fights her brother for her dowry. Wayne’s character, a former boxer, who had once killed a...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor My new article “The Uncomfortable Truths and Double Standards of Bribery Enforcement” will soon be published in the Fordham Law Review. Click here to download the article. Here is what the article is about. “In recent years, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement has become a top priority for the U.S. government, and government...

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 reverberate, it continues to bring up some very knotty questions, which have bedeviled the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) or compliance practitioner in many areas. Today there is an example around...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor If you have an interest in the DOJ’s frequent use of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), then this recent judicial opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan (D.D.C.) should be required reading. Prior to Judge Sullivan’s opinion, there have been (it is believed) just two prior judicial opinions to address the issue of what power...

First it was Petrobras but it certainly did not take long for the second shoe to drop for the other corrupt national energy company in Latin America, the Venezuelan national oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, also known as PdVSA. Anyone in the energy space has either heard the rumors or worse, experienced how the Venezuelan government tried to use the entity as not only a cash machine but also an extra-curricular...

The following interview is with Leas Bachatene, CEO at ethiXbase. Hi Leas, thank you for participating in today’s Q and A. I have really enjoyed working with the ethiXbase team, including on our recent White Paper and at the September 15 th event in Houston on “Crime, Cooperation, and Compliance.” So, Leas, first, perhaps you can share some of your background and experience that led you to ethiXbase...

Today I continue my exploration of the line of sight theory under which a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) or compliance practitioner would have visibility across the lifecycle of a sales transaction so they could move from Detect to Prevent to Prescription in a best practices Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance program. I am basing this innovation on a chat I had with Scott Lane, Chief Executive of the Red...

The World Bank recently assessed a project relating to the funding of power stations in South Africa. The World Bank’s initial assessment appears to have cascaded from an SEC enforcement action with respect to Hitachi Ltd. According to Andrew Ceresney of the SEC’s enforcement division, and as reported in the FCPA Blog , “Hitachi’s lax internal control environment enabled its subsidiary to pay millions...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published this page one article titled “Wal-Mart Bribery Probe Finds Few Signs of Major Misconduct in Mexico” about the company’s long-standing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scrutiny. The WSJ article largely represented a “nana nana boo boo” article seemingly in response to the New York...

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 2015 Compliance and Ethics Institute. In a podcast Lane talked about the line of sight for a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) or compliance practitioner into the life cycle of a transaction to review...

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 most interesting and innovative use of techniques to induce horror that have been seen on screen. Today we honor a rarely seen Boris Karloff thriller, Isle of the Dead. In this film, a malevolent force...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor Rama sentenced but what is the back story, scrutiny alert, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup. Rama Sentenced, But What is the Back Story? As noted here , last week James Rama, a former executive at defense contractor IAP Worldwide Services, was sentenced to four months in federal prison for his role in a...

I continue my exploration of why I believe that compliance is at the Tipping Point, with today’s entry of data point four, which is last week’s decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the Schrems case. While most commentators have focused on the Schrems decision around the lack of US data privacy protection from government or company intrusion, for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) practitioner...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor A few developments from the United Kingdom worth highlighting. SFO Speech In this recent speech, David Green (Director of the SFO) stated: “ Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) I anticipate that at least 2 DPAs will be completed this calendar year. Concern has been expressed by some in the NGOs and the media that DPAs will be merely...

The second tipping point for compliance which has occurred over the last 30 days or so is the information which has leaked out that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the process of hiring an outside advisor to provide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) unit an additional perspective on best practices for an anti-corruption compliance program. This person, identified as Hui Chen, will advise the DOJ on not...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor This is the third time FCPA Professor has highlighted this specific topic. The prior two posts ( here and here ) were in connection with FCPA enforcement actions against healthcare companies Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer and the “enhanced compliance obligations” imposed upon the companies in resolving an FCPA enforcement action. In...

This is the day that the US government traditionally celebrates Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, in the form of Columbus Day. My grandfather emigrated from Italy so he always took Columbus Day as his heritage day. My little sister was also born on the same calendar day, so here is to my grandfather and all the other immigrants who made America what it is today and my baby sister, sitting on a mountaintop in...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor Alleged bribery at the U.N., former Siemens exec pleads guilty to long-standing charges, scrutiny alerts and updates, quotable, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup. Alleged Bribery at the United Nations The United Nations does much preaching about bribery and corruption, yet perhaps it should look inward as once...

This recent post highlighted the SEC’s FCPA enforcement action against Bristol-Myers. This post continues the analysis by highlighting various issues to consider from the enforcement action. False and Misleading SEC Release The SEC routinely brings enforcement actions against companies for false and misleading public statements. Pardon me for being the stickler, but the first paragraph of the SEC’s...