Tag: whistleblower

Categories
Life with GDPR

EU Whistleblower Update


In this episode Jonathan Armstrong and Tom Fox are back to discuss issues relating to data privacy, data protection and GDPR. In this episode we take up a recent decision from Luxembourg which would seem antithetical to good whistleblower practices. We also consider the upcoming EU Whistleblower Directive go live date of December 17. Some of the questions we consider include:

  1. What are the facts of the enforcement actions?
  2. When should company harm outweigh public good from whistleblowers?
  3. What lessons can companies learn from this matter in conjunction with the EU whistleblower directive?

Resources
Check out the Cordery Compliance, client alert on this topic, 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.

Categories
Fraud Eats Strategy

Destigmatizing Whistle-Blowers: The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower 10 Years In – Best Practices for Companies in a Brave New World

The passage of Dodd-Frank represented a major overhaul of U.S. financial regulations. Among the Act’s most notable achievements were the creation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Office of the Whistleblower and the SEC Whistleblower Program. In its short, 10-year history, the SEC Whistleblower Reward Program has been extraordinarily successful in enabling the SEC to root out securities fraud and protect investors. Since the inception of the SEC Whistleblower Program, the SEC has paid more than $900 million in awards to whistleblowers resulting in more than $3.5 billion in financial remedies. According to the SEC Whistleblower Program’s 2020 Annual Report, the SEC is tracking over 1,100 matters in which a whistleblower’s tip has caused a Matter Under Inquiry or investigation to open.

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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.
 

Categories
FCPA Compliance Report

Greg Keating on the Current State of Whistleblower Regs and Law

In this Episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I am joined by Greg Keating, well-known employment lawyer who focuses on whistleblower regulation and litigation.  In this episode we take a look at the current state of whistleblower regulations, case law and recent SEC awards.  Highlights include:

  1. Greg recently changed firms, moving to Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. He tells us about your new firm?
  2. Why was the whistleblower provision of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 so controversial?
  3. What are you counseling clients on regarding whistleblower claims under the Biden Administration?
  4. In addition to the AMLA of 2020, what other regulatory changes have you seen from the federal government regarding whistleblowers?
  5. Are there any court cases involving whistleblowers that have gotten your attention in 2021?
  6. 2002 was the Year of the Whistleblower with Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Collen Rowley of the FBI. Could 2021 be in the running for such a designation?
  7. Why is listening to those employees who raise their hands and speak up so critical?
  8. Why is a proactive approach to whistleblowers so critical?

Resources 
Greg Keating on LinkedIn
Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. firm profile

Categories
Daily Compliance News

May 13, 2021 the Too Big to Award edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Size of potential whistleblower award threatens CFTC Whistleblower program. (NYT)
  • Key suspect in Vatican corruption case detained. (National Catholic Reporter)
  • Goodbye to salary negotiations at Coinbase. (Protocol)
  • The ‘parental insanity’ defense. (Bloomberg)
Categories
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

Categories
Daily Compliance News

August 20, 2020-the Screen for Whistleblowers edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • BA to screen for potential whistleblowers in their hiring process. (TheMirror)
  • China v. academic freedom. (WSJ)
  • Air BnB files with SEC for IPO. (WSJ)
  • NBC Universal head out after 10-year affair becomes public. (WaPo)
Categories
Daily Compliance News

Daily Compliance News: June 7, 2019-the Bring out your Dead edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • OSI announces both DOJ and SEC have dropped their FCPA investigations of the company? (YaHooFinance)
  • Fiat Chrysler’s U.S. Sales Chief Files Whistleblower Lawsuit. (WSJ)
  • Will JPMorgan settlement lead to increase in Dad-leave? (Washington Post)
  • SEC investigating Siemens AG, Philips NV and General Electric Co for FCPA violations. (Reuters)
Categories
Everything Compliance

Everything Compliance-Episode 47, the Potpourri edition

Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have the full quintet of Mike Volkov, Jay Rosen, Matt Kelly, Jonathan Armstrong and our newest colleague, Sarah Hadden. In this episode, we present a potpourri of topics.

  1. Sarah Hadden considers the behavioral side of ethics and how this needs to be incorporated more fully into a compliance regime. Sarah shouts out to the University of Texas, McCombs School of Business (Hook ‘Em) and its online video series entitled Ethics Unwrapped.
  1. Matt Kelly considers the current state of whistleblower programs. He asks if corporate legal departments will support the fix to Dodd- Frank after the Digital Realty Trust ruling? Matt shouts out to smaller law firms and companies having more focused compliance events.
  1. Jay Rosen tells you everything you wanted to know about monitors but were afraid to ask. Jay shouts out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her slap down of AG William Barr.
  1. Mike Volkov discusses the new OFAC compliance program and the current state of OFAC sanctions. Mike shouts to the recently concluded ECI national conference Impact 2019.

The members of the Everything Compliance are:

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.
For additional reading and listening, check out the follow resources:
Matt Kelly’s blog post, Progress on Whistleblower Fix in Radical Compliance. Matt and I take a deep dive into the topic on Episode 123 of Compliance into the Weeds.
For more information on Sarah’s topic, check out the new eBook she referenced in her section, Compliance and Ethics Risk Assessmentby Jeff Kaplan. It is available free for download hereon Corporate Compliance Insights.
Check out Mike Volkov’s 5-part blog post series on the new OFAC compliance program on his blog site, Corruption, Crime and Compliance. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) For those who prefer the podcast format, you can list to his podcast on the topic here.
See Jay’s multipart article series on working with monitors, available on Corporate Compliance Insights.

  1. Corporate Monitorship 101: Who They Are and What You Can Expect
  2. What is a Post-Resolution Monitorship?
  3. What is the Power of a Pre-Settlement Monitorship?
  4. What Issues Should a Company Consider When Hiring a Corporate Monitor?