Tom Fox

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 what to do next. Tom Fox, our Man From FCPA has more inside.

Image: The fallout from the FIFA corruption scandal continues across the globe (literally), with FIFA audit committee members suspended and investigations expanded. As the next wave of soccer tournaments reaches the planning stages, however, we might be starting to see FIFA taking business practices seriously. Our Man From FCPA, Tom Fox, has more.

Two weeks ago, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement took a formal turn when the Justice Department released the Yates Memo, which formalized the department’s new focus on prosecuting individuals under the FCPA. In the same week, there was a much less reported event that could have equally large effect on FCPA enforcement going forward. Our Man from FCPA has more inside.

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 blogger Tom Fox has more inside.

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 some FCPA lessons. The Man From FCPA, Tom Fox, has more inside.

The SEC has now taken its first enforcement action in a “princeling” case, fining BNY Mellon for offering plum internships to the relatives of foreign officials to win business with their countries’ sovereign wealth funds. Inside, columnist Tom Fox looks at the case (which is probably the first of several) and the HR and compliance checks you should have to avoid similar problems.

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 suspensions. Further in all previous discipline involving “equipment violations results in a fine of $5,512.” The NFL suspended Brady for four games with an attendant loss of salary at approximately $1 million.

I find the world of sports to be a rich source of tutorials on things not to do for the FCPA compliance practitioner; from suspending Tom Brady for events which happened after DeflateGate, to the St. Louis Cardinals hacking the Houston Astros (of all teams) to steal secrets around player evaluations, 2015 has been a […]

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 has other law enforcement tools available: On Monday, the agency announced a criminal prosecution against Russian national Vidam Mikerin for his role in a bribery scheme involving Russian exporting firm Tenex. Details inside.