Tag: SEC

Categories
Compliance and Coronavirus

Don Stern on US Enforcement Agencies During the Time of Covid-19


Welcome to the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. In this episode, I visit with Don Stern who is Managing Director of Corporate Monitoring & Consulting Services. In this role, Stern oversees the company’s corporate monitoring programs across a spectrum of industries: corporate, healthcare, financial services, environmental and others. Stern is the former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. We discuss how the enforcement agencies such as the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission and US Attorneys are responding to the pandemic and in particular any crimes, fraud and financial abuses arising out of the crisis.
Some of the highlights include:

  • What are some of the key government initiatives during Covid-19?
  • What will be the cadence of enforcement during the summer of 2020 and through the rest of the year?
  • Has self-reporting become even more important during Covid-19?

For me information check out the Affiliated Monitors website here.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

March 28, 2020-the Will Lloyd’s Pay Out edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Dutch bank loses 10% of value on one trader. (FT)
  • SEC gives more time to filers. (WSJ)
  • BP to draft shareholder resolution on climate change. (WSJ)
  • Will Lloyd’s pay out? (FT)
Categories
FCPA Compliance Report

Karen Woody on the SEC year in FCPA Enforcement

In the Episode, I visit with Karen Woody, Assistant Professor of Law at Washington and Lee. Karen was in private practice for many years before going into Academia. She specializes in the SEC and issues around the Commission. Some of the highlights include:

  • Karen moved this year from the Indiana University-Kelly School of Business to the Law School at Washington and Lee. We discuss some of the differences in teaching at a law school as opposed to a business school.
  • Karen assesses the SEC’s overall year in FCPA Enforcement.
  • Karen highlights some of the key SEC FCPA enforcement actions over the past year.
  • She provides insights into the upcoming Supreme Court consideration of Lui and Wang attack on profit disgorgement.
  • We consider SEC Chairman Clayton’s backing off on his attempt to cut whistleblower awards. Why did it fail?
  • Woody highlights some of the SEC enforcement areas she is paying the most attention to going forward.
  • We conclude with a look into the veiled land of the future and what Woody expects to see from the SEC in 2020.

Resources
Scholarly papers from Karen Woody, click here.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

November 29, 2019, the I Ate Too Much edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Deloitte chief in Switzerland fired over ethical lapses. (FT)
  • What do riots in Hong Kong mean for BODs? (FT)
  • Baseball close to new opioid policy. (WSJ)
  • Should convicted fraudsters be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains? US SCt to decide. (NYT)
Categories
This Week in FCPA

Episode 181-the Fishy Letters edition

SEC Chair Jay Clayton is reduced to having a PR firm create fake investor comments to support a SEC rule change. The Astros cheating scandal gets worse. As Tom worries MLB might take away his replica World Series Championship Trophy and Jay consoles him about when a team cheats and wins, they turn to some other of this week’s top compliance and ethics stories which caught their collective eyes.

  1. Using the same defense as Hoskins, Boustani admits bribery and corruption in Mozambique Tuna Boat case. Will it work out any better for him? Steward Bishop and Frank Runyeon in Law360. (Sub Req’d)
  2. SEC whistleblower tips go down for the first time. Kristen Broughton in the WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal. Kevin LaCroix sees it otherwise, on the D&O Diary.
  3. Jay Clayton gins up fake written comments to support regulation change. Zachary Mider and Ben Elgin report in Bloomberg.
  4. Former Keppel Offshore lawyer sentenced to time served. Dick Cassin reports in the FCPA Blog.
  5. Why punishing the bribe takers is equally important as punishing the bribe payors? Matthew Stephenson explains it all in the Global Anti-Corruption Blog.  
  6. Does an aggressive position in a Wells submission hurt a company in a SEC enforcement action? Lawyers from Simpson Thatcher explore in NYU’s Compliance and Enforcement Blog.
  7. What is ‘enforcement fatigue’ and how did Alstom overcome it? Dylan Tokar reports in the WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal.
  8. of Treasury bringing more sanctions cases against shipping companies. Kristin Broughton reports in the WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal.
  9. What will risk and compliance look like in 2020? David Banks considers in Navex Global’s Ethics & Compliance Matters blog.
  10. How does M&A benefit from an independent assessment? Jay continues his series on CCI.
  11. What are the implications of Gen Z on the front lines of compliance? Gaurov Kapoor explores in CCI.
  12. Recent FCPA enforcement actions shows the SEC will use FCPA Accounting Provisions to hold a company liable for ineffective AML controls. Clay Porter in the National Law Review.
  13. Navex’s Loren Johnson joins the podcast to talk about Navex Global’s 2020 Benchmarking Survey.You can participate in Navex Global’s annual survey by clicking here.

Tom Fox is the Compliance Evangelist and can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Jay Rosen is Mr. Monitor and can be reached at jrosen@affiliatedmonitors.com.
For more information on how an independent monitor can help improve your company’s ethics and compliance program, visit our sponsor Affiliated Monitors at www.affiliatedmonitors.com.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

November 20, 2019, the Fishy Letters edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Top Vatican AML official leaves post. (YahooNews)
  • SEC Chair cites fishy letters as support for his policy change. (Bloomberg)
  • Federal workers who failed to check in on Epstein arrested. (NYT)
  • FedEx boss says NYT is wrong, his company paid lots of taxes (they just didn’t report them?). (Washington Post)
Categories
Why a Duck

Coconuts and SEC Year End FCPA Enforcement Actions

From Vaudeville to the Silver Screen to the Small Screen, the Marx Brothers made an impact wherever people found them. Now Tom Fox and Mike Volkov have wedded their love of the Marx Brothers with their passion for compliance and bring them into the boardroom to help explain and explore the sometimes-chaotic world of governance, risk-management, ethics and compliance. In this episode they discuss the movie Coconuts and how it informs the three SEC fiscal year end FCPA enforcement actions.  Highlights from the podcast include:

  1. What can we learn from Quad/Graphics and sham 3rd parties?
  2. Beware of over expansion without appropriate FCPA controls.
  3. Why does control override inform the enforcement action involving Westport Fuels Systems?
  4. The M&A implications of Westport Fuels Systems?
  5. Why does the Barclays FCPA enforcement action get back to FCPA basics?
  6. How effective is your training program?

Resources
From Tom Fox

  1. Westport Fuels
  2. Barclays
  3. Quad/Graphics

From Mike Volkov

  1. Barclays
  2. Quad Graphics

Marx Brothers
Coconuts-the full movie on YouTube.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

November 14, 2019, the Astros Caught Cheating edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • McDermott doesn’t bother to tell lenders it was under SEC investigation. (WSJ)
  • Astros accused of cheating. Why MLB must step in? (ESPN.com)
  • USOPC President tells Congress they can’t engage in oversight. Good luck with that. (WSJ)
  • Merkel says Europe must seize its data back from Silicon Valley. (FT)
Categories
Everything Compliance

The Not Headed to Doral edition

Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have a quintet of Jay Rosen, Matt Kelly, Sarah Hadden, Jonathan Armstrong and Mike Volkov with a potpourri of topics and commentary on current events from the compliance perspective. Rants and shouts outs follow the commentary for this episode, with one public service announcement from across the pond.

  1. Mike Volkov takes a deep dive into the debate on whether a Chief Compliance Officer should report to the GC or not. Volkov shouts out to Harvard Law Professor Matthew Stephenson for his great blog site Global Anti-Corruption Blog and specifically his recent blog post, If You Don’t Think Conflicts of Interest Matter, Consider the Kurds.
  2. Jay Rosen discusses the role ethics and compliance in the Mergers and Acquisition process. Rosen shouts out General James Mattis’ and his remarks at the Alfred Smith Dinner where accepted Trump’s claim he was the ‘most-overrated general’ by noting Trump had said 3-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep was the ‘most-overrated actress.’
  3. Sarah Hadden takes things a different direction by reading the eBook Trump and Compliance which was published in late 2016 and was based on the Everything Compliance gang’s predictions of how compliance would fare under the Trump Administration. Hadden shouts out to a new section of CCI which will focus on those persons early in their compliance careers. It is certainly a welcome addition to the compliance discussion.
  4.  Matt Kelly provides breaking news by discussing the SEC proposed changes to its Whistleblower Program. Kelly shouts out to Boston Celtic Enes Kantor for calling out the NBA on its hypocrisy on China.
  5. Jonathan Armstrong discusses the growing tide of US-style class actions coming to the UK and EU around the issue of data breaches under GDPR. Armstrong provides a public service announcement around the perils of using Apple Pay and the failure to Document Document Document.
  6. Tom Fox rants about the surreal news conference given by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney where he (1) admitted the President violated US law in requiring a quid pro quo from Ukraine for the Congressionally mandated US aid package, claiming it was ‘just politics’ and (2) admitted the President violated the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution by announcing the President had ordered the 2020 G-7 Summit to be held at Trump properties.

Resources:
From Jonathan Armstrong, on the always great Cordery Compliance site:
UK Data Protection Regulator Announces Intention to Fine BA after Data Breach
Life with GDPR – Episode 22 – Morrisons And Vicarious Liability
Client Alert: Doors open for data protection class action as appeal court allows Google claim to proceed?
 From Matt Kelly, the coolest guy in Compliance, on Radical Compliance:
SEC Tees up Whistleblower Reforms
 From Mike Volkov’s remarks, two articles from Compliance Week (sub req’d)
Point: Why CCOs should report to GC by Jeff Kaplan
Counterpoint: CCO, GC independence is critical by Matt Stankiewicz
From Sarah Hadden, the eBook published by CCI:
Trump and Compliance-the Conversation is Just Getting Started
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
  • Sarah Hadden –Publisher at Corporate Compliance Insights. Hadden can be reached at Sarah@corporatecomplianceinsights.com

The host and producer (and sometime panelist) of Everything Compliance is Tom Fox the Compliance Evangelist. Everything Compliance is a part of the Compliance Podcast Network.

Categories
Compliance Into the Weeds

Proposed SEC Whistleblower Reform

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 episode, Matt Kelly and I go into the weeds to explore the SEC’s proposed changes to its whistleblower program.
Some of the highlights include:

  • The reforms were originally announced 18 moths ago. Why is the SEC just now getting to public discussion?
  • What if anything will be the cap on high end awards?
  • Conversely, will the expansion of low-end awards beget better whistleblower tips?
  • Why would the SEC want to reduce award levels at the high end? What is the constituency for this position?
  • Why (or why not) should a whistleblower tip be in writing?
  • Why was the SEC Open Meeting to discuss these reforms postponed until November?
  • Will the meeting be postponed again? Who benefits from a postponement?

For additional reading see the following:
Matt’s blog post, SEC Tees Up Whistleblower Reform, on Radical Compliance.