Day: March 3, 2023

Categories
Wirecard

Season 3, Episode 39 – Coming off the Rails

Welcome to Season 3 of Lies, Spies & Corporate Crimes: The Wirecard Saga. The Wirecard Saga has become the world’s leading source of all things Wirecard. In The Wirecard Saga, Lies, Spies & Corporate Crimes, host Mikhail Reider-Gordon, Managing Director of Institutional Ethics & Integrity at Affiliated Monitors, looks at the biggest financial scandal in post-war Germany from a variety of angles. In this episode, our host analyses the series of events connected to the company’s downfall and follows the trial dates and the Singaporean Police Force’s investigation. In addition, the podcast examines other entities connected to the Wirecard scandal, including the German Ministry of Defense. Tune in to The Wirecard Saga for all the latest updates!

Key Highlights

  • Trial dates set in Singapore
  • Why won’t Germany take up Singapore’s offer?
  • Braun as Captain of the Titanic
  • He’s not a joiner
  • Second-guessing CEO’s decisions
  • Judge Frodisch just can’t understand
  • TPA’s were firewalls
  • CEO of only some departments
  • Another loan to an off-shore entity
  • EY gets pulled back in
  • Wirecard Card Solutions’ legacy
  • PayRNet and RailsR ‘historic’ problem
  • Lietuvos Bankas says PayRNet engaged in gross TF
  • From Bad to Worse
  • Procurement Corruption
  • 4Strat and the Austrian-Russian connection

Notable Quotes

1.     “I have never been a gang member or even their leader. I had no personal relationship with any of these people.”

2.     “I didn’t believe for a single second that the business wasn’t there.” “We said very clearly, we regard the third-party partners as an intermediate step. The TPA is reviewed as a form of firewall, essentially, intercessors who create a distance between Wirecard and dealers, a layer that appears to reduce risk.”

3.     “I am convinced that the business existed, but significant parts did not flow into the escrow account.”

4.     “You couldn’t run everything, the Wirecard Bank. And remember, all those illicit card charges needed to be recorded to get past Visa, Mastercard, Wirecard, and Amex. And the intermediary banks, don’t forget them. There were a lot of moving parts.”

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Compliance on Business Ventures: Dis-linking Illegal Conduct

One of my favorite words in the context of FCPA enforcement is dis-link. It a useful adjective in explaining how certain conduct by a company must be separated from the winning of business and more broadly it works on many different levels when discussing the FCPA. This concept of dis-linking was most prominently laid out in Opinion Release 14-02. It provided one of the most concrete statements from the DOJ on the unidimensional nature of compliance in the M&A context; both in the pre-acquisition and post-acquisition phases.

Opinion Release 14-02, taken together with the steps laid out in the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, has provided the post-acquisition actions a compliance professional needs to take after the transaction is closed. If you cannot perform any or even an adequate pre-acquisition due diligence, the time frames you put in place after the acquisition closes will need to be compressed to make sure that you are not continuing any nefarious FCPA conduct going forward.
But it all goes back to dis-linking. If a Target is engaging in conduct that violates the FCPA but the Target itself is not subject to the jurisdiction of the FCPA, you simply cannot afford to allow that conduct to continue. If you do allow such conduct to continue your company will be actively engaging and participating in an ongoing FCPA violation. That is the final takeaway from this Opinion Release; it is allowing corruption and bribery to continue which brings companies into FCPA grief. Opinion Release 14-02 provides a roadmap of the steps you can take to prevent such exposure.
Three key takeaways:

  1. In the M&A context, the key is to dis-link any illegal conduct going forward.
  2. Opinion Release 14-02 provides the clearest roadmap for pre- and post-acquisition compliance actions in the M&A context.
  3. Never forget the Opinion Release procedure. It has been used successfully in two important M&A matters (08-02 and 14-02).
Categories
Sports and Compliance

The Dan Snyder Indemnity Edition

Welcome to the Sports and Compliance podcast. For the longest time, I have wanted to have a podcast on the intersection of Sports and the World of Compliance and Ethics, both for those stories as the play out on the Sports Page and for the lessons they provide to business executives and compliance professionals. In this podcast series, I am joined by one of the top compliance commentators around, Stephen Martin, CCO at Skillsoft. Together will use our love of sports and competition to discuss current ethical issues in sports, look at compliance through a sports lens and determine how the world of sports and its stories can be a guide for the compliance professional.

In today’s episode, Tom and Stephen look at the sale of the team formerly known as the “team who will not be named,” the investigation surrounding Alabama Crimson Tide basketball player Brandon Miller, and MLB’s changes to the game such as the size of the bases, clocks on pitchers and hitters and outlawing shifts; all in the hopes of speeding up the game. Tom and Stephen explore the stories from different perspectives and always keeping their compliance audience in mind. Learn more with Sports and Compliance and keep up with current sports news, with a dash of compliance laid in.

Key Highlights

·       The Mary Jo White Report and Confidence in the NFL [00:03:56]

·       The Alabama Basketball Imbroglio [00:06:53]

·       The Consequences of Poor Decision Making [00:10:33]

·       The Impact of Baseball’s Rule Changes on the Game [00:13:49]

·       The Impact of the Shift on Baseball [00:17:13]

·       Baseball Speed Up: Positive Effects on Keeping Fans Interested [00:19:56]

Notable Quotes

1.    “You don’t often see it when somebody causes their own problems and then ask to be identified for them, but we’ve seen that with CEOs before.”

2.    “It’s a classic example of a couple of things we see in compliance. Star performers. Sometimes there’s just different rules for them. Right? And that’s just how it goes.”

3.    “It’s just it’s shocking to me that Alabama has done it this way.””

4.    “You can’t just say, I’m being mistreated. We’ve had that conversation in our household the last few days about what’s fair and when rules are in place, what happens? And these are all good things to understand because they’re there are consequences whether positive or negative to rule changes and you can figure them out.”

Categories
From the Editor's Desk

February and March in Compliance Week

Welcome to From the Editor’s Desk, a podcast where co-hosts Tom Fox and Kyle Brasseur, EIC at Compliance Week, unpack some of the top stories which have appeared in Compliance Week over the past month, look at top compliance stories upcoming for the next month, talk some sports and generally try to solve the world’s problems.

 In this month’s episode, we look back at top stories in CW from February around the changes in DOJ efforts to encourage corporate cooperation and compliance and; the Treasury Department’s renewed enforcement efforts against banks for violations of OFAC Regulations. We previewed some of the stories CW will look at in March, including several articles about data privacy in the US and Europe in a CW special issue.

Kyle relates some of the upcoming Compliance Week 2023 Conference highlights from May 15-17 in Washington, DC. Listeners of this podcast will receive a discount of $200 by using code TF200 on the link below.

 We conclude with a look at some of the top sports stories, including a recap of the Super Bowl, the insanity of the NBA trading deadline, and the opening of Spring Training.

 Resources

Compliance Week 2023 information and registration here

Kyle Brasseur on LinkedIn

Compliance Week

Categories
Daily Compliance News

March 3, 2023 – The Spread The Pain Edition

Welcome to the Daily Compliance News. Each day, Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, brings you compliance-related stories to start your day. Sit back, enjoy a cup of morning coffee, and listen to the Daily Compliance News. All from the Compliance Podcast Network. Each day we consider four stories from the business world, compliance, ethics, risk management, leadership, or general interest for the compliance professional.

Stories we are following in today’s edition of Daily Compliance News: