When recently I contacted the Underworld about the potential listing of this vast property, I was stunned when Satan himself answered the phone. While I was tempted to ask what happened to all his hired help down there, Satan, being much more direct, got immediately to the point and said his action was a preliminary step because he had only been recently informed of the stunning development that the Houston Astros had...

In the movie Margin Call, Jeremy Irons intones that there are three ways to win in business: (1) be the smartest; (2) be the fastest; and (3) cheat. I am currently out at the SCCE 2015 Compliance and Ethics Institute and as you might guess the Volkswagen (VW) emissions-testing scandal is a major topic of conversation. One of the more interesting observations is that the VW scandal was not a failure of compliance but an...

I was recently reading an article about a former UN consultant who was convicted and sentenced for conspiring to inflate prices for a UN contract to distribute pharmaceuticals to the DNC. As part of the investigation, e-mail was discovered in which the consultant wrote (link here ), “Let’s make loads of cash now…Clearly, supplying small amounts of grossly overpriced drugs to dying and starving Africans...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor First it was Johnson & Johnson (see here – $70 million enforcement action in April 2011). Then it was Smith & Nephew (see here - $22 million enforcement action in February 2012). Then it was Biomet (see here – $22.8 million enforcement action in March 2012). Then it was Pfizer / Wyeth (see here – $60 million enforcement...

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action against Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) for the actions of the company’s joint venture (JV) in China, which made cash payments and provided other benefits to health care providers (HCPs) at state-owned and state-controlled hospitals in exchange for prescription sales. The matter was settled...

The SEC filed a settled FCPA books and records and internal controls action centered on a firm which used a subsidiary partially owned by a foreign political party to influence the award of government contracts. Specifically, the complaint claims that a subsidiary of Japanese giant Hitachi, Ltd., sold a portion of its South African subsidiary to a front entity for the African National Congress, the ruling political, as...

A basic rule of law principle is consistency. In other words, the same legal violation ought to be sanctioned in the same way. When the same legal violation is sanctioned in materially different ways, trust and confidence in law enforcement agencies is diminished. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has always been a law much broader than its name suggests. The anti-bribery provisions are just one prong of the...

On this day in 1941, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams played a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and got six hits in eight trips to the plate, to boost his batting average to .406, making him the first player since Bill Terry in 1930 to hit over .400. Williams spent his entire career with the Red Sox. In one of the great bookends in all of sports, Williams hit...

A number of months ago, Paul Hamilton, KYC Cube Ltd, asked me if I wanted to be the group moderator on Linkedin of a new subgroup for his AML Knowledge Center, dedicated to anti-bribery compliance and best-practices. My reaction, ‘really?’ Another LinkedIn group? But after a few discussions with Paul, as I was not easily persuaded, I was finally convinced that a LinkedIn group based thoroughly on thought leadership...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor More on the Yates Memo, scrutiny alerts, survey says, and FCPA reform. It’s all here in the Friday roundup. More on the Yates Memo Once again a private company has marketed a public official to drive attendance to its paid event. Earlier this week, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell delivered this speech reiterating various aspects...

Yogi Berra died yesterday. In addition to being one of the greatest catchers in baseball, he was a 3-time Most Valuable Player (MVP), a 15-time All Star, a Hall of Famer and member of the All-Century Team, a player on 10 World Series champions and Manager in 2 more World Series. Even in a country with over 300 million people there are few universally recognized icons and Yogi was one of the few. But even more than his...

Things are seriously bad when one of the world’s most respected business focused publications, the Financial Times (FT), asks if the auto “industry faces ‘Libor moment’”? Yet that was a headline yesterday in the lead article in the FT about the still expanding crisis involving the auto manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) and its emission test cheating that has come apart over the past few days....

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor If the DOJ and/or SEC make allegations in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action, and a risk averse corporation agrees to resolve the enforcement action in the absence of judicial scrutiny, does that mean the allegations are true? Not necessarily. For instance, a component of the 2014 HP enforcement action (see here and here for prior...

On this day 81 years ago, one of the most famous events in boxing history occurred, the famous “Long Count” in the second Tunney-Dempsey title match. Boxer Gene Tunney had won the crown from slugger Jack Dempsey the year before. In their rematch, most prognosticators had thought Dempsey would win back his title but Tunney kept Dempsey at bay with his combination of foot-work, jabs and circling around Dempsey...

(Please visit the site to view this video) In the second of my Front Line interviews, I have the pleasure of engaging with author and HBR contributor Dorie Clark, on how our thoughts and ideas can have a real impact “on the ground” beyond ‘clicks and likes.’ Dorie’s two books, Reinventing You (Amazon link here ) and Stand Out (Amazon link here ), had a profound impact on my own trajectory...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor DOJ compliance counsel identified, additional lenient PetroTiger exec sentences, scrutiny alerts and updates, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup. DOJ Compliance Counsel As highlighted in this previous post, last month word spread that “the [DOJ] is hiring a compliance counsel who will help prosecutors determine...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor Since its release last week (see here for the original post), much has been written about the “Yates Memo.” Much of this commentary has simply regurgitated the DOJ’s position as if the policy announcement (much of it old news to those informed) of a political actor represented a big deal. Other commentary used the Yates Memo simply...

I listen to several podcasts each week and one of my favorites is ‘The Showrunner’ podcast, co-hosted by Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor. While the basic premise is a podcast about podcasting, I have found it to be much broader than that simple premise. In many ways it is about the craft of communication; how to do an interview, how to craft content and how to deliver your message so that the listener has a great...

In many ways the migration from Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) 1.0 to 2.0 and beyond is more than simply about the technical aspects of a CCO to the internal and external delivery of a compliance solution by the compliance function. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) both have consistently articulated that a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) anti-corruption compliance program...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor In the recently announced Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Daren Condrey (see here for the prior post), the DOJ advanced an extremely broad “foreign official” interpretation. In short, the DOJ alleged that a Maryland resident (Vadim Mikerin), working for a Maryland corporation ( TENAM Corporation ), was a Russian “foreign...

On this day in 1890, Mary Clarissa Agatha Miller, who later became known as Agatha Christie, was born in Torquay, Devon, England. As a youngster, she and her sister, Madge, made up thrilling stories to tell each other. As noted in ‘This Day in History’, while her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie was off fighting in World War I, Agatha “worked as an assistant in a pharmacy, where she learned about...

Moses Malone died yesterday. I do not often have the chance to celebrate a true first but Malone was a true first. The first high school basketball player to go from high school to professional basketball, when he was drafted by the Utah Stars from the old American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1974. He later played for the (then) sad-sack Houston Rockets, who had never won anything, after the merger between the ABA...

The full animation of “Why We Say Yes,” is now available on Richard Bistrong’s Front-Line Perspective on FCPA, Anti-Bribery and Compliance . As a companion guide, here is Richard’s interview with Nicole Rose ( email ), creative founder and CEO of Create Training and The Centre for Excellence. Hi Nicole, so first, how about sharing some of your background, and how that brought you to the founding...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor September has traditionally been an active month for Department of Justice policy statements and speeches. Keeping this tradition alive, earlier this week DOJ Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates delivered this speech and released this memo titled “Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing” (hereafter the “Yates Memo”...

This article was reprinted with permission from FCPA Professor The day after Labor Day has always seemed like a second New Year. In that spirit, let’s kick off the “new year” by reviewing what has happened thus far in 2015. ***** August Enforcement activity There were three FCPA enforcement actions brought or announced in August. As highlighted here , BNY Mellon became the first...