Compliance

In a rare advisory opinion released last month, the Department of Justice stated that it will not take enforcement action against an inquiring U.S. investment advisory firm that sought to pay a subsidiary of a foreign, government-owned bank for services related to a sale of assets, concluding that this did not reflect a corrupt intent […]

Sargeant Marine Inc., a Florida asphalt company, has pleaded guilty to violations of the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA, and agreed to pay a criminal fine of $16.6 million to resolve charges of bribing officials in Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The company admitted to an eight-year scheme to pay bribes for contracts to purchase or […]

Javier Aguilar, a trader at the U.S. subsidiary of a multinational oil distributor and trading company, has been charged with money laundering and bribing foreign officials, in violation of the FCPA. Aguilar allegedly paid $870,000 in bribes to Ecuadoran officials for help winning a $300 million fuel-oil contract with state-owned Petroecuador, using sham consulting agreements […]

In a guest article, Troy McAlister warns not let the presence of internal controls such as delegation of authority, transfers of cash, vendor master files and disbursement controls for international operations lull you into a false sense of confidence. He argues that these controls will typically use a level of materiality that is higher than […]

On September 11, 2020, the French Anti-Corruption Agency published its Practical Guide to corporate gifts and entertainment policies. The guide provides recommendations to assist companies in developing and implementing an effective gifts and entertainment policy. Read the full post at Jones Day

Morrison Foerster summarizes some of the most important international anti-corruption developments from the past month, including: DOJ Issues its First FCPA Opinion Procedure Release...

The district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss a qui tam case alleging violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute. The court found the relators had adequately pleaded that a physician conducted surgeries that were medically unnecessary and more extensive than necessary, because he had a financial incentive to use certain implantable […]

The Eighth Circuit was the latest to weigh in on the growing split regarding what precisely a relator must plead to satisfy Rule 9(b)’s particularity requirement. In United States ex rel. Benaissa v. Trinity Health, it held that the relator failed to plead presentment of a false claim adequately, where he alleged that the defendant’s […]

New compliance risks are emerging as a result of the pandemic, while many companies are furloughing or reducing staff dedicated to anti-bribery and anti-corruption functions. KPMG’s Matthew McFillin and Amanda Rigby offer advice on what compliance leaders should do to get ahead of these new risks, including: Start using data analysis to identify the riskiest […]

Concluding his series of blog posts about the Herbalife FCPA enforcement action, Tom Fox offer some final thoughts. “There are now real incentives for companies to take advantage of these discounts and incentives the government is offering,” he writes. “Obviously the first is to step forward and self-disclose but even if that is not an […]