Tag: cooperation

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Compliance Into the Weeds

Compliance into the Weeds: Balt and TradeStation: Lessons for the Compliance Professional

The award-winning Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast that takes a deep dive into a compliance-related topic, literally going into the weeds to explore it more fully. Looking for some hard-hitting insights on compliance? Look no further than Compliance into the Weeds! In this episode of Compliance into the Weeds, Tom Fox and Matt Kelly look at the Declination awarded to Balt SAS and the OFAC enforcement action involving TradeStation. 

First, they review a Corporate Enforcement Policy declination for French medical-equipment company BAL SAS and the company’s U.S. subsidiary after self-disclosing, cooperating and remediating misconduct involving a U.S. subsidiary executive and a Belgian consultant allegedly funneling about $600,000 in bribes to a French public hospital official using sham consulting agreements, invoices, and poor documentation; BAL disgorged about $1.21 million in profit on roughly $1.68 million in revenue and disclosed while its internal investigation was still ongoing, raising timing and high-margin red-flag issues.

Second, they cover OFAC’s $1.1 million settlement with TradeStation for accidentally disabling sanctions-screening controls for nearly a year, enabling hundreds of transactions from Iran, Syria, and Crimea; despite having layered tools on paper, IT changes and lapsed subscriptions undermined those controls, underscoring the need for ongoing monitoring, testing, and auditing.

 Key highlights:

  • Balt FCPA Case
  • Disclosure Timing
  • Profit Margin Red Flags
  • Controls and France Angle
  • TradeStation Overview
  • How Screening Failed
  • Monitoring and Accountability
  • Costs and OFAC Lessons

Resources:

Matt in ⁠Radical Compliance⁠

Tom in the ⁠FCPA Compliance Report⁠

Tom  

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A multi-award-winning podcast, Compliance into the Weeds was most recently honored as one of the Top 25 Regulatory Compliance Podcasts, a Top 10 Business Law Podcast, and a Top 12 Risk Management Podcast. Compliance into the Weeds has been conferred a Davey, a Communicator Award, and a W3 Award, all for podcast excellence.

Categories
The Corruption Files

Episode 15 – The ABB Settlement

Establishing trust can greatly affect the outcome of a case. Thomas Fox and Michael DeBernardis talk about ABB’s 2022 bribery case in South Africa, how self-disclosure benefits any situation, the DOJ’s approach on cracking down recidivists, choosing the right people for your team, and being wary of waivers.

▶️ The ABB Settlement with Tom Fox and Mike DeBernardis Background facts to the case. (00:00:29)

Tom lays out the facts of the ABB settlement. Michael points out the DOJ’s plans for penalizing recidivists and ABB’s biggest compliance misstep. (00:07:07)

Tom emphasizes the importance of compliance oversight, being vigilant of billing in high-risk jurisdictions, and the benefit of ABB’s “almost” self-disclosure. (00:12:08)

Mike discusses the impact of trust and incentivizing other recidivists to come forward and the risks of going off of real-time information. (00:18:27)

Tom mentions how having someone with experience concluding resolutions in the DOJ can make a difference. Even with a fairly low penalty, ABB is still required to report on its compliance program. (00:24:22)

Mike prefers having an independent monitor in place. However, he highlights ABB’s trust in their team to do a thorough job of reporting. (00:27:31)

Mike gives credit to ABB’s swift actions and extensive remediation, describing the DOJ’s outcome as “threading the needle”. Thomas believes the case is still a win for compliance. Michael drives home how doubling down on compliance pays off.

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