Tag: Corporate Compliance

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Red Flags Rising

Red Flags Rising: S01 E38: “Fallen Chips” – GIR’s Estelle Atkinson on her Three-Part Report

Mike Huneke and Brent Carlson welcome Estelle Atkinson, a reporter with Global Investigations Review (GIR), to speak about her recent three-part series, “Fallen Chips,” published on January 26, 27, and 28, 2026 (linked in the show notes). They discuss how Estelle learned of the U.S. government investigation of Zenith Semiconductor in Chandler, Arizona (01:14); that company’s background (06:03); when employees started to realize that things were not quite right at the company and how that led to employees going to the FBI (08:19); how Estelle got to know the employees and why they were willing to help her with her story (10:30); how her experience illustrates more broadly the challenge companies have in responding to whistleblower reports or allegations (11:48); how diversion starts close to home, and is not always in some exotic “offshore” location (15:31); how U.S. administration policies to promote the export of the U.S. AI “stack” are not without controls or national security considerations (15:58); why success under America’s AI Action Plan and the American AI Export initiative will depend on effective, risk-based export controls compliance programs (16:21); the role of media in American life (19:14); why the standard PR or IR “playbook” of asserting “full compliance with the law” creates risks if companies aren’t expressly incorporating the full definition of “knowledge,” to include “an awareness of a high probability,” into export controls compliance (20:14); and what GIR readers can expect to see (or read) next from Estelle (20:49). Mike and Brent conclude with yet another installment of Brent Carlson’s “Managing Up” (22:39).

Resources:

GIR 

Fallen Chips Part I: Inside the FBI Raid that Rocked an Arizona Chip Start-Up (Jan. 26, 2026)

Fallen Chips Part II: Silicon Secrets and the Risks Hiding in Plain Sight (Jan. 27, 2026)

Fallen Chips Part III: The Fault Lines of the US-China Tech War (Jan. 28, 2026)

More about:

Estelle: https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/authors/estelle-atkinson

Contact Estelle: estelle.atkinson@globalinvestigationsreview.com

Contact Brent: brent@redflagsrising.com

Contact Mike: michael.huneke@morganlewis.com

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Red Flags Rising

Red Flags Rising: S01 E37: Carole Basri on Subsidizing World Peace: The U.S. Experiment, and the Dynamic Relationship between National Security & Corporate Compliance

Back in January 2024, Mike and Brent had the good fortune to meet Carole Basri at an event at NYU Law School. On this episode of Red Flags Rising, they welcome her as a guest to talk about her specialties: national security, geopolitics, and corporate compliance. They specifically discuss Carole’s extensive professional background (00:59), a new treatise on National Security Law that Carole, Mike, and Brent are writing for the Practising Law Institute (PLI) (04:00), an upcoming event co-hosted by the New York State Bar Association’s International Section, Corporate Compliance Committee and Morgan Lewis, to which the new Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement David Peters is an invited keynote speaker (08:18), why public enforcement officials remarks are relevant under U.S. export controls and other probability-based (i.e., “red flags”-driven) national security laws (09:26), how the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) was not only an example of that but also was really a child of an era where economic interdependency required a level of transparency and clean commerce to continue (12:00), and the relationship between Bretton Woods, Belt and Road, and Mike’s favorite book, Tales of an Economic Hitman, and what could be viewed with hindsight as effectively a U.S. policy decision to trade its own economic security for decades of (relative) world peace, increased global productivity, and increased living standards (16:52). Brent then closes out the discussion with the latest installment of his “Managing Up” segment (21:57), after which Mike makes some (further) book recommendations based on the discussion for those interested in further exploring some of the idea and concepts covered during the discussion:

More about Carole

Contact Brent: brent@redflagsrising.com

Contact Mike: michael.huneke@morganlewis.com

Interested in learning more about the March 10, 2026, event? Contact Mike & Brent at the email addresses above.