All Anti-Bribery Enforcement articles

  • Blog

    A new chapter in anti-corruption enforcement?

    2017-06-19T13:00:00Z

    Jorge Luis Arzuaga, a former managing director at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, pled guilty to having arranged the transfers of more than $25 million in bribes for corrupt FIFA officials. This is the first guilty plea in the plethora of service provides who facilitated the massive corruption scandal engaged ...

  • Article

    Five-year limit placed on SEC disgorgement penalties

    2017-06-13T10:15:00Z

    The SEC must rethink how it collects billions of dollars through disgorgement now that the Supreme Court has imposed a five-year statute of limitations.

  • Blog

    The FCPA as an economic tool

    2016-08-09T15:30:00Z

    The FCPA is rarely considered as an economoic tool. But as a means of fighting corruption, however, it also helps to improve market efficiency.

  • Blog

    First British DPA Provides Much to Ponder

    2015-12-08T09:45:00Z

    It has finally come to pass: the first deferred-prosecution agreement under the U.K. Bribery Act. From the role of judicial oversight (greater than that in the United States) to the final statement of facts (much greater than that in the United States), the settlement with ICBC Standard Bank is full ...

  • Blog

    Bristol-Myers Squibb Dodges Criminal FCPA Enforcement

    2015-11-03T09:45:00Z

    Image: Last week Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that the Justice Department has decided to prosecute the company for a criminal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. When you look at the facts of the misconduct, a declination seems a bit far-fetched, but our Man From FCPA, Tom Fox, takes a closer look at ...

  • Blog

    Chinese Open New Front in Anti-Corruption Investigations

    2015-10-22T14:15:00Z

    The Chinese fight against bribery and corruption took an interesting twist earlier this month, when it was announced that the former head of the national oil company, Sinopec, was being investigated for bribery and corruption in the securing of contracts in Angola. If this investigation continues it could open a ...

  • Blog

    Sticky Situation: Ill-Gotten Gains From FCPA Violations

    2015-10-19T13:00:00Z

    Image: One of the continuing myths around FCPA enforcement is so-called “springing liability,” where a company that acquires a business also acquires a FCPA violation along with the purchase. That is not an accurate understanding of the issue, our anti-corruption blogger Tom Fox writes. But it does touch on issues ...

  • Blog

    Is FIFA Getting Serious About Ethics Reform?

    2015-10-12T18:00:00Z

    FIFA seems to be getting serious about the perception that its organization is rife with corruption. Last week it suspended three of its top officials, including President Sepp Blatter. Those suspensions come one week after major sponsors demanded FIFA take action. Our Man From FCPA, Tom Fox, has more inside.

  • Blog

    Double Trouble in Internal Investigations After Schrems

    2015-10-09T09:45:00Z

    Image: Last week another huge shift in the compliance world happened: the Schrems decision by the European Court of Justice, finding that the previously presumed European Union Safe Harbor regime is invalid. For the anti-corruption compliance practitioner, the decision is double-trouble when you consider it in light of the recent ...

  • Blog

    Sponsors Turn Up the Heat on FIFA Corruption

    2015-10-05T11:30:00Z

    Image: Four of FIFA’s largest sponsors have called on the group’s president, Sepp Blatter, to resign immediately given his role in possible misconduct at the soccer organization. (Blatter is now under criminal investigation by Swiss prosecutors.) That business-driven pressure, Compliance Week blogger Tom Fox (left) says, might be the first ...

  • Blog

    New U.S.-China Corruption Cooperation Initiative

    2015-10-01T16:15:00Z

    Image: An interesting development reported this week: The United States and China have agreed to cooperate on the seizure of assets obtained through corruption and on the deportations of Chinese nationals from the United States who engaged in bribery and corruption in China and later fled to America for sanctuary. ...

  • Blog

    Moves Against FIFA, VW: Sweating in the C-Suite?

    2015-09-29T10:45:00Z

    Image: Talk in corporate compliance circles lately has been dominated by the United States and publication of the Yates Memo, where the Justice Department will be pushing for more prosecution of individuals. The real bite for compliance, however, might be happening in Europe, where regulators are moving against the chiefs ...

  • Blog

    This Phrase Is a Key Corruption Indicator

    2015-09-28T09:30:00Z

    Image: Title: FoxCorporate scandals come in many forms, and can violate any number of federal statutes. For compliance officers, however, some key phrases—such as one that has turned up in scandals including Volkswagen and Hewlett-Packard—are the words that should guide your program. When employees utter them, they need to know ...

  • Blog

    The FCPA Enforcement World Changed Last Week

    2015-09-14T09:30:00Z

    Image: The Yates Memo issued by the Justice Department last week, insisting that companies work much harder to help prosecute individuals if they want to receive cooperation credit, is likely to be a sea change in how compliance officers must address problems like Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations. Our FCPA ...

  • Blog

    Flying the Unfriendly Skies of Investigations and Resignations

    2015-09-09T20:00:00Z

    Image: Title: SmisekRarely in compliance do you see a CEO resignation as unceremonious as the ouster earlier this week of now former head of United-Continental, Jeff Smisek (left). While his removal doesn’t involve foreign government officials—only local ones at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—it does provide ...

  • Blog

    FCPA Lessons in Deflate-gate: Consistency of Discipline

    2015-09-09T10:45:00Z

    For those in the FCPA world I would like to focus on one aspect of the court’s ruling: consistency in discipline. In Brady’s appeal, the court was highly critical of the fact that the NFL policy for discipline for first offenses involving equipment violations would result in fines rather than ...

  • Blog

    More on Poverty, Bribery, and Compliance

    2015-09-02T11:15:00Z

    Image: Earlier this week I wrote about poverty: how its brutal reality makes corporate compliance programs so difficult to implement, because people in emerging markets (foreign officials and employees alike) need to take bribes to survive. Then came a recent conversation with a foreign official in said emerging markets, and ...

  • Blog

    Google Facing Some Intense Heat in Europe

    2015-09-02T09:15:00Z

    Image: European companies may now find it easier to file potential damages suits against Google, thanks to an independent platform calling on individuals and entities to proffer any civil claims regarding Google’s anticompetitive behavior. The “Google Redress and Integrity Platform” comes at a time when Google is facing several investigations ...

  • Blog

    FCPA and Pursuing Foreign Officials: The Mikerin Example

    2015-09-01T16:15:00Z

    Image: Many Europeans wonder why the U.S. Justice Department does not prosecute foreign officials who receive bribes in violation of the FCPA. The reason, according to CW blogger Tom Fox, is that the FCPA is a supply-side law that does not criminalize the receipt of bribes. But the Justice Department ...

  • Blog

    Gerald Green and Draconian Results of an Adverse FCPA Verdict

    2015-08-28T14:45:00Z

    Gerald Green, one of the few individuals who went to trial against the Justice Department in a case where the government alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, passed away last week. Green and his wife Patricia were convicted in 2009 of conspiring with others to bribe a Thailand ...