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MoForecast

MoForecast: Predictions on U.S. Attorney’s Offices


In this episode of MoForecast, Morrison & Foerster partner James Koukios speaks with fellow partner s Josh Hill and Christine Wong about what to expect from US Attorney’s Offices under the new Biden Administration.

Morrison & Foerster LLP (MoFo) · MoForecast: Predictions On US Attorney’s Offices

James Koukios is co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Securities Litigation, Enforcement, and White Collar Defense Group and serves as co-head of the FCPA + Global Anti-Corruption Practice. James represents companies and individuals in high‑stakes government enforcement actions and complex internal investigations. He previously served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he was the lead prosecutor in two landmark FCPA related trials: United States v. Esquenazi and United States v. Duperval. While at DOJ, James also served as lead prosecutor in United States v. AEY Inc., a defense procurement fraud and export licensing case that served as the basis for the 2016 film War Dogs. He also previously served as Special Counsel to then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III.
About the Speakers
 James Koukios is co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Securities Litigation, Enforcement, and White Collar Defense Group and serves as co-head of the FCPA + Global Anti-Corruption Practice. James represents companies and individuals in high‑stakes government enforcement actions and complex internal investigations. He previously served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he was lead prosecutor in United States v. AEY Inc., a defense procurement fraud and export licensing case that served as the basis for the 2016 film War Dogs. He also previously served as Special Counsel to then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III.
James is joined in this episode by:

  • Josh Hill, partner in Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office and former federal prosecutor
  • Christine Wong, partner in Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office and co-chair of the Securities Litigation, Enforcement and White Collar Defense group

The Morrison & Foerster team is made up of talented defense lawyers, including many who once served as prosecutors and regulators. The team helps firm clients resolve their legal issues by immersing themselves in how their clients think and operate. Learn more about the firm’s Investigations + White Collar Defense group.
 

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Life with GDPR

The Experian Enforcement Notice Case


In this episode Jonathan Armstrong and Tom Fox are back to discuss issues relating to data privacy, data protection and GDPR. Today, we consider the Experian enforcement action. Recently, the UK Data Protection Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), slapped Experian with an enforcement notice requiring the company to make major changes to how it processes personal data in its UK marketing services business. The main themes in the investigation, which targeted various players in the credit referencing industry, centered on “invisible processing”, “over processing”, providing insufficiently clear privacy information and using certain lawful bases incorrectly for processing people’s data. Some of the highlights are:

  1. Background to the case.
  2. Why did the other credit rating agencies agree to the ICO terms?
  3. This matter is about the Enforcement Notice and not fines and penalties.
  4. Why is transparency essential in data processing?
  5. How does big data make all this more difficult?
  6. What are ‘legitimate interests’?

Check out the Cordery Compliance, client alert on the Experience matter, click here. For more information on Cordery Compliance, go their website here. Also check out the GDPR Navigator, one of the top resources for GDPR Compliance by clicking here.

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The Walden Pond

Your Employees Will Expect to be Paid Daily in 2021 – Here’s what you need to know from a legal perspective


In this episode, Vincent Walden welcomes back Jason Lee, CEO of DailyPay to the Pond to discuss the earned-wage access business model and how major employers like Kroger, Target, Dollar Tree, and many others are rethinking how employees get paid in an efficient, compliant manner.

Covid has changed how we think about work and the people who do it, and Jason Lee believes that this new understanding of our reliance on the hourly workforce is going to create the impetus to serve and honor them more effectively. One of the ways this is going to be happening is through the earned-wage access. Rolling this out is a meaningful and valuable benefit for employees, but there are compliance issues that companies need to be aware of.
Jason says that it is incumbent upon employers to make sure that they are in compliance on three key issues: when taxes are owed and paid, wage and hour compliance and payroll deductions, and the issue of whether earned-wage access is being treated like a loan.
Resources:
Jason Lee at DailyPay / LinkedIn

Categories
Everything Compliance

Episode 70, the Holiday Edition


Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have the full quintet of Jonathan Armstrong, Jay Rosen, Jonathan Marks, Matt Kelly and Mike Volkov for a deep dive into plethora of topics in this special holiday edition. We end with a veritable mélange of rants and shouts outs.

  1. Jonathan Armstrong data privacy issues related return to work in the new year after most employee spent 2020 working from home. Armstrong shouts out the scientist who spearheaded the research which has led to the Covid vaccines.
  1. Jay Rosen looks at what a company needs to do to get through a monitorship. Jay rants about the San Francisco 49ers leaving California to play in one of the country’s biggest Covid-19 hot spots, Arizona.
  1. Matt Kelly considers the changes in enforcement, policy and focus in the SEC and other regulatory agencies under the Biden Administration. Matt shouts out to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who has withstood criminal actions by the Trump Administration to secure a fair vote from Georgia.
  1. Mike Volkov looks at the Vitol FCPA settlement and how it may portend greater inter-agency cooperation in corruption and anti-competitive enforcement actions. Volkov rants about Gary Cohen, former head of Goldman Sachs and his refusal to allow the Goldman mandated clawbacks for the firm’s 1MDB corruption and fraud.
  1. Jonathan Marks looks at Board of Directors and sees the Dunning-Kruger Effect of over confidence and lack of self-awareness in many areas of corporate governance. Marks rants about the NLF not giving a flip about player safety around Covid-19 all the while moving games without any thought to competition.
  1. Tom Fox gives a bittersweet shout out David Prowse who recently died. Prowse was the first actor to play Darth Vader albeit voiced by James Earl Jones. 

The members of the Everything Compliance are:

  • Jay Rosen– Jay is Vice President, Business Development Corporate Monitoring at Affiliated Monitors. Rosen can be reached at JRosen@affiliatedmonitors.com
  • Mike Volkov – One of the top FCPA commentators and practitioners around and the Chief Executive Officer of The Volkov Law Group, LLC. Volkov can be reached at mvolkov@volkovlawgroup.com
  • Matt Kelly – Founder and CEO of Radical Compliance. Kelly can be reached at mkelly@radicalcompliance.com
  • Jonathan Armstrong –is our UK colleague, who is an experienced data privacy/data protection lawyer with Cordery in London. Armstrong can be reached at armstrong@corderycompliance.com
  • Jonathan Marks is Partner, Firm Practice Leader – Global Forensic, Compliance & Integrity Services at Baker Tilly. Marks can be reached at marks@bakertilly.com

The host and producer (and sometime panelist) of Everything Compliance is Tom Fox the Voice of Compliance. He can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Everything Compliance is a part of the Compliance Podcast Network.

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Daily Compliance News

December 10, 2020-the Facebook Sued edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • US and States sue Facebook? (WaPo)
  • How bad was PPP fraud? Very bad. (NYT)
  • Chinese corruption sanctioned. (WSJ)
  • GE agrees to fine for misleading investors. (WSJ)
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The Wirecard Saga

The Wirecard Saga – Dirty Deeds Down Under


Welcome to the latest edition to the Compliance Podcast Network, The Wirecard Saga. In this series, I am joined by Mikhail Reider-Gordon, Managing Director of Institutional Ethics & Integrity at Affiliated Monitors.  In this episode, we take a deep dive into the many and varied discrepancies in all aspects of the Wirecard fraud and investigation.
Some of the highlights include:

  • Current events
  • Recriminations fly – APAS and EY at fisticuffs
  • UK jumps on the Audit Sector Reform Bandwagon
  • Marsalek tainted Wirecard Bank too
  • Six Is the Loneliest Number (at BaFin)
  • Wirecard UK Ireland (WUKI) fraud
  • The Sordid History of Wirecard New Zealand
  • FBME teaches dirty tricks to NZ
  • The Kremlin’s bank
  • The West’s hijacked financial system
Categories
Fraud Eats Strategy

Is Corruption a Part of the UN’s DNA?

In this episode, we look inside the United Nations and its various agencies. We assess the harsh reality of endemic corruption in how governments intersect with UN agencies. Given its unique mission, the nature of how it is funded and disbursed funds largely for things such as large-scale infrastructure building, healthcare, education, and peace-keeping, and the fact that its employees and officers are foreign officials under the law, the UN represents a perfect storm of corruption risk. Scott Moritz speaks to Murphy & McGonigle law partner Robert “Bob” Appleton. Bob was Chief of the first-ever UN Anti-Corruption Unit, the Procurement Fraud Task Force, which existed between 2006-2010, and was responsible in part for the focus of the FCPA by the Fraud Section at DOJ.

Join us each week as we take a deep dive into the various forms of fraud across the world and discuss crime families, penny stock boiler rooms, international money launderers, narco-traffickers, oligarchs, dictators, warlords, kleptocrats and more.

Scott Moritz is a leading authority on white-collar crime, anti-corruption, and in the evaluation, design, remediation, implementation, and administration of corporate compliance programs, codes of conduct. He is also considered an authority in the establishment, training, and oversight of the investigative protocols carried out by financial intelligence, corporate security, and internal audit units.
 

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Compliance and Coronavirus

James Green with an Update on Risk Management 9 months into COVID-19


Welcome to the one of the newest additions to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. In this episode, I am joined by James Green, Director of Risk Advisory Services at SAI Global. James returns to discuss risk management nine months into the Coronavirus health crisis, new risks that have emerged and how companies need to think about business continuity going into 2021 and beyond.
Resources
SAI Global Risk Management Services
James Green on LinkedIn

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Great Women in Compliance

Episode 86- Angela Main, Monitor Certified


Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
Last year we spoke with Olga Pontes who was in the middle of multiple monitorships at Odebrecht at the time.  This week Mary speaks with Angela Main, Chief Compliance Officer at Zimmer Biomet who recently led the company to a monitor certification – big congratulations to Zimmer Biomet for the momentous achievement!
Mary was especially thrilled to speak with Angela as they share similarities in having New Zealand heritage and being international citizens.  They open the episode by discussing what being an expat really means today.  Is the term now outdated?
Angela shares her experiences with us about what going through the monitorship was like for a global Compliance department and some of the things she learned along the way, including thoughts on how to best work with the monitor and get the most out of the experience.
The natural question for Angela at this stage is, so what next?  Angela shares her priorities for maintaining her Compliance program into 2021 and speaks about how she would approach Compliance fatigue if it were to come up as an issue moving forward.
Mary was curious about how Angela kept her team motivated and focused given monitorships involve a great deal of work for staff to manage and Angela supplied her initiatives for keeping the team going through a busy period.
We wrap up this episode by asking Angela to gaze into her crystal ball and speak about what the future holds for Compliance – listen in to hear her astute views on several different areas, including the future of monitorships.
Have you heard that the Great Women in Compliance Book, Sending the Elevator down is now available in an electronic version?  Head to Amazon to get your copy today!
If you’ve already read the booked and liked it, will you help out other women to make the decision to leverage off the tips and advice given by rating the book and giving it a glowing review on Amazon?
As always we’re so grateful for all of your support and if you have any feedback or suggestions for our 2021 line up, or would just like to reach out and say hello, we always welcome hearing from our listeners.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.

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Everything Compliance

NDAA Creates New Whistleblower Law

Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast which takes a deep dive into a compliance related topic, literally going into the weeds to more fully explore a subject. In this, our 200th episode Matt and Tom go into the weeds to look at the new anti-money launder whistleblower law (AMLA) which is part for the updated Bank Secrecy Act legislation, included in the National Defense Authorization Act authorization of 2012 (get all that). It significantly expands whistleblower protections for those who come forward with AML or other similar allegations. Some of the issues we consider are:

·      Why has this been created for the Department of the Treasury?

·      Who will administer the whistleblower program?

·      What lessons has Congress learned about protecting whistleblowers?

·      Can a CCO be a whistleblower under this new law? How about a GC?

Resources

For more information see Mengqi Sun’s article in the WSJ Risk & Compliance:

Defense Bill Proposes Anti-Money-Laundering Whistleblower Program 

For an excellent breakdown of the legislation, see the Zuckerman Law Firm’s Whistleblower Protection Law and SEC Whistleblower Awards Blog:

Anti-Money Laundering Act Establishes Whistleblower Reward Program and Protects Whistleblowers from Retaliation