All articles by Tom Fox – Page 29
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Blog
Cost of Corruption: Now the Short-Sellers Are Here
The costs of corruption come in many forms, not the least being painfully high penalties from regulators and lawsuits from unhappy shareholders. Now a new front has opened: Muddy Waters, a short-seller firm pressuring Swedish telecom company TeliaSonera, is accusing it of bribery in central Asia—and benefitting as the stock ...
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Surviving the Jolt of the Yates Memo
An earthquake in the world of FCPA enforcement happened in September, when “the Yates Memo” arrived and heralded a new era of pursuing individuals responsible for corporate misconduct. This week, columnist Tom Fox dissects some of the implications for compliance officers—including the threat that from here forward, the interests of ...
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How Will Schrems Ruling Affect FCPA Compliance in Europe?
Image: The Schrems decision last week invalidated the safe harbor provision that let U.S. companies ferry personal data back and forth from Europe. Already compliance officers are beginning to sweat the implications of that ruling for anti-corruption programs. First likely headache: hotline data. Tom Fox, our Man From FCPA, has ...
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Is FIFA Getting Serious About Ethics Reform?
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.
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Double Trouble in Internal Investigations After Schrems
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 ...
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Update on the Petrobras Corruption Scandal
This week one commentator reported that the Netherlands-based SBM Offshore would pay $255 million in fines and penalties for its role in the Petrobras scandal. If SBM Offshore does settle with Brazilian authorities for this amount, it will be a first step in resolving the morass businesses sucked into that ...
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Sponsors Turn Up the Heat on FIFA Corruption
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 ...
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New U.S.-China Corruption Cooperation Initiative
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. ...
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Moves Against FIFA, VW: Sweating in the C-Suite?
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 ...
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This Phrase Is a Key Corruption Indicator
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 ...
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FIFA Corruption Scandal: A Business Solution Coming?
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 ...
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Compliance and Ethics Sputters at Volkswagen
Image: This week, anti-corruption blogger Tom Fox takes a closer look at the scandal involving Volkswagen and its diesel engine cars, intentionally designed to cheat emission standard testing through software nicknamed “defeat devices.” The world’s biggest carmaker admitted to U.S. watchdogs that it deliberately rigged computers in its cars ...
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Yates Memo: More Change Coming in FCPA Enforcement
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 ...
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The FCPA Enforcement World Changed Last Week
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 ...
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Flying the Unfriendly Skies of Investigations and Resignations
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 ...
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Blood Is Not Thicker Than FCPA Risk
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) ...
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FCPA Lessons in Deflate-gate: Consistency of Discipline
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 ...
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Do You Have a Windows 95 FCPA Compliance Program?
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 ...
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FCPA and Pursuing Foreign Officials: The Mikerin Example
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 ...
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Naming and Shaming in FCPA Enforcement
One thing that critics of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act constantly flail is the (alleged) lack of individual prosecutions under the law. Perhaps naming and shaming individuals responsible for actual FCPA violations would get word to the business community to take anti-corruption more seriously.