Webinar: Effective Strategies to Handle Whistleblower Complaints May 21, 2024, 12 Noon EST Sign Up HERE Whistleblower reporting is a real and pervasive threat to companies. The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies offer financial rewards to potential whistleblowers. This new incentive structure poses real risks for companies that whistleblowers may skip internal reporting and present concerns to fedferal prosecutors as a first step. In those cases where a whistleblower/employee reports internally, companies have to apply best practices in re ..read more

NAVEX continues to produce high-quality compliance reports, many of which are a must-read in the compliance industry.  Its annual Whistleblower Report is of particular note — NAVEX is the leading provider of hotline services in the world and its data is invaluable as a source of trends in this industry. This year –2024 — is no exception.  NAVEX combed through the data from 3784 organizations for 2023.  Its headline conclusion — 2023 was a busy year, a record level of use and the substantiation rate reached an eleven-year high. More reports came in and more were found true. Such ..read more

Remarks given by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Undersecretary Alan Estevez during the 2024 Policy Update Conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) emphasized the need for organizations to enhance their due diligence efforts to prevent the diversion of restricted commodities to U.S. adversaries, including, but not limited to, the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Noting that traditional, more limited due diligence was no longer sufficient in an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, Undersecretary ..read more

The Justice Department has a long and rich history of targeting dominant companies using antitrust monopolization tools — looking back to the 1980s, it was AT&T; in the 1990s, it was Microsoft; and in 2023, DOJ has brought a monopolization case against Google; and meanwhile the FTC filed monopolization cases against Facebook and Amazon. DOJ has now turned to Apple and its dominance in the smartphone market.  DOJ’s action follows explicit warnings to the tech industry on exclusionary conduct.  Apple’s conduct, according to DOJ, is a textbook example of a monopolist, Apple, levera ..read more

As DOJ, OFAC and BIS ramp up sanctions and export controls enforcement, they have continued to provide important compliance guidance.  You have to give the enforcement agencies credit — on the one hand, they regularly warn of the coming enforcement storm and aggressive push against companies and individuals; and on the other hand, they provide significant compliance guidance.  Over the last five years, DOJ, OFAC and BIS have steadily increased the amount and quality of sanctions and export controls guidance. To this end, the three agencies have issued several Joint Compliance Notice ..read more

On the heels of the Gunvor FCPA settlement for $661 million, DOJ announced its settlement with Trafigura, the latest commodities trading company to fall under DOJ’s FCPA Sweep against the industry.  Trafigura joined the list of international commodity trading companies to suffer FCPA enforcement actions — Vitol, Sargeant Marine, Glencore, Freepoint, and Gunvor. DOJ’s corporate resolutions are connected to individual prosecutions and guilty pleas of 19 individuals, including six government officials, eight corrupt intermediaries and five trading companies.  Trafigura Beheer B.V. (“Tr ..read more

Trafigura’s bribery scheme resembles the same schemes implemented by its significant competitors — Vitol, Glencore, Gunvor.  At the core of the conduct, Petrobras and Brazilian government officials collected bribes in exchange for valuable contracts for Petrobras oil.  The factual statement reflects DOJ’s extensive knowledge base in the international commodity trading industry — DOJ had access to several significant cooperating witnesses, including Petrobras officials and trader based on Houston, Texas. According to the statement of facts, between 2003 and 2014, Trafigura and its co ..read more

On the heels of the Gunvor FCPA settlement for $661 million, DOJ announced its settlement with Trafigura, the latest commodities trading company to fall under DOJ’s FCPA Sweep against the industry.  Trafigura joined the list of international commodity trading companies to suffer FCPA enforcement actions — Vitol, Sargeant Marine, Glencore, Freepoint, and Gunvor. DOJ’s corporate resolutions are connected to individual prosecutions and guilty pleas of 19 individuals, including six government officials, eight corrupt intermediaries and five trading companies.  Trafigura Beheer B.V. (“Tr ..read more

In a recent speech, on March 7, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Monaco announced that DOJ would be implementing in the next 90 days a new whistleblower program to reward reporting of criminal misconduct at both public and private companies.  In particular DOJ will encourage reporting of potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and the recently-enacted  Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (“FEPA”). AAG Monaco noted that DOJ will be particularly interested in “foreign corruption cases” involving “non-issuers and violations of the recently enacted FEPA,” along with ..read more

Daniela Melendez, an Associate at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for a posting on the SEC’s new climate disclosure rules. Daniela can be reached at dmelendez@volkovlaw.com. After months and months of deliberations and negotiations, the SEC finally issued its final rules for climate disclosures. The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investor (“the final rule”).   The SEC navigated a series of political landmines and finally adopted the new rules.  Before doing so, the SEC eliminated climate disclosure requests for small businesses – Tier III co ..read more