Not just a compliance program, but an effective compliance program: SEC, DOJ issue strong reminders

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Brett Ingerman ◽  
Michael D. Hynes ◽  
Brian H. Benjet ◽  
Kristina Neff
Keyword(s):  
Attorney General ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Corporate Compliance ◽  
Compliance Programs ◽  
Settlement Agreement ◽  
Compliance Program ◽  
Guidelines And Recommendations

Purpose – To alert corporations of a May 2015 speech issued by a top Department of Justice Official and a May 2015 settlement agreement between a global resources company and the Securities and Exchange Commission, both of which emphasize the importance of effective corporate compliance programs and provide guidelines and recommendations for achieving compliance programs that actually work. Design/methodology/approach – Summarizes and analyzes the May 2015 speech of Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell at the 10th Annual Compliance Week conference in Washington DC and the May 2015 settlement between BHP Billiton and the SEC to settle Foreign Corrupt Practices Charges. Findings – The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission continue to scrutinize not just whether corporations have compliance programs in place, but whether the compliance programs are actually effective. Originality/value – Practical guidance from experienced compliance professionals based on recent government opinions and actions concerning corporate compliance programs.

Appraisal of the regulatory frameworks for combatting money laundering in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adegboyega Adekunle Ige
Keyword(s):  
Money Laundering ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
Made In

Purpose A review of literature revealed that many publications on efforts at combatting money laundering focus on two frameworks, namely, legal/legislative and institutional, while overlooking the third and equally important framework – the “regulatory/ supervisory framework.” This paper aims to eradicate the dearth in literature with regards to this third and seldom acknowledged framework and it aims at filling that gap. Design/methodology/approach The analysis took the form of a desk study, which distinguished the three frameworks for combatting money laundering and provided a comprehensive list of the main actors in each regime within the Nigerian legal context. The Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2016 was examined in detail. Findings Three categories of regulators were identified and discussed in this paper: the supervisory bodies that regulate the activities of financial institutions, namely, Central Bank of Nigeria, Securities and Exchange Commission and Nigerian Insurance Commission; The Bureau for Money Laundering Control which supervises – designated non-financial institutions and businesses; the Attorney General of the Federation; and (Self-Regulatory Organizations. The Attorney General of the Federation was identified as the prime regulator within the context of the 2016 Act. Suggestions on how the regulators could make the most of their roles were made in the concluding part. Research limitations/implications This paper only considered the Nigerian legal context and only the extant law – the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2016 was critically examined. Originality/value The findings in this paper and the writing approach are original.

SEC flexes its muscle on accounting fraud and targets more individuals

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-53
Author(s):  
David Woodcock ◽  
Joan McKown
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Internal Controls ◽  
Accounting Fraud ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practical Guidance ◽  
A Priority

Purpose To note the increase in accounting and financial reporting matters at the Securities and Exchange Commission by highlighting a number of recent cases filed by the agency. Design/methodology/approach The SEC recently announced the settlement or filing of a number of significant accounting fraud cases. Coupled with recent statements by the SEC and the Department of Justice, it is clear that accounting fraud is a priority and that individuals are in the cross-hairs. This article discusses a few of the recent cases and the trend toward more financial reporting and issuer disclosure cases. Findings The number of financial reporting and issuer disclosure cases will likely continue to increase. Individuals will be targeted in more of those cases, internal controls will be a focus, whistleblowers will continue to be important in this area, and SOX 304 clawbacks will continue to be a weapon for the SEC. Originality/value Practical guidance from experienced securities and financial services lawyers.

Settlement payouts will promote US whistle-blowing

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Whistle Blowing ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
Residential Mortgage ◽  
Mortgage Backed Securities ◽  
Limited Class ◽  
A Company

Significance The marked increase in 2015 expenses stems in part from Goldman's 5.1-billion-dollar settlement with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and various federal and state regulators announced on January 14 relating to the firm's securitisation, underwriting and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007. On January 15, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a 700,000-dollar award to a whistle-blower, the first-ever such award to a company outsider for analysis that led to a successful enforcement action. Impacts The SEC's whistle-blower payout to an outsider may incentivise further 'bounty-hunting' against corporations by external experts. Business-friendly judicial decisions that have limited class action recoveries will not necessarily restrict whistle-blower claims. The salience of the Sanders campaign among primary voters skews post-election political headwinds against deregulation-friendly Democrats.

US prison population will increase under Trump

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Prison Population ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Private Prisons ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Us ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Incarcerated Population

Subject Politics of the US criminal justice system. Significance On February 23, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded a memorandum issued by his predecessor aimed at phasing out Department of Justice contracts with companies for operating private prisons. Stocks of these companies rose following President Donald Trump's November 2016 election win, and his administration is pursuing policies that will increase the size of the incarcerated population. Impacts Election-driven pressures to cut costs will dissuade officeholders from funding recidivism-reducing education and job programmes. Lack of competition in the private prison sector will undercut market mechanisms for better service delivery at lower cost. Voters are likely to focus on memorable high-profile crimes when establishing policy preferences rather than overall statistical declines. Conservatives are more likely to overestimate crime trends than liberals, which will limit political dividends for pro-reform Republicans. Federal detention of gang members and deportation to their countries of origin could consolidate transnational criminal networks.

scholarly journals Calculating Corporate Compliance & The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian S. Haney
Keyword(s):  
Cost Efficiency ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ◽  
Corporate Compliance ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Compliance Programs ◽  
Firm Compliance ◽  
Cost Efficient ◽  
The Cost

Technology is rapidly disrupting every industry and institution around the globe. Yet, corporate compliance has remained relatively unaffected by technological change when compared to other industries. If firms continue to lag behind in their compliance efforts, their risk exposure to the potentially lethal sanctions associated with major compliance failures will continue to increase with time. This is particularly true in the context of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Generally, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) is a regulatory statute that forbids bribery and false accounting for domestic firms doing business abroad. And, in the past decade the DOJ and SEC have begun aggressively enforcing the FCPA. Firms should begin using technology to develop more robust and cost-efficient compliance programs to insulate themselves from the FCPA’s harsh penalties. This Article provides an algorithm that allows firms to evaluate and improve their compliance programs in accordance with several published sources of guidance. Compliance scholars have made clear that it is critical for firms to maintain strong corporate compliance programs and have suggested different models and frameworks for internal evaluation and auditing. However, those suggestions fail to consider how technology may be used to improve the cost-efficiency of corporate compliance and ethics programs. This Article takes an informatics-based approach to evaluating and improving firm compliance by focusing on the most important compliance functions according to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), courts, and other Government actors. Indeed, firms may drastically improve the cost-efficiency of their compliance efforts by adopting the analytical framework proposed in this Article.

scholarly journals Coordinating Compliance Incentives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Root
Keyword(s):  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Repeat Offenders ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Coordination Problem ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ◽  
Institutional Misconduct ◽  
Compliance Programs ◽  
Effective Compliance ◽  
Enforcement Authority

102 Cornell L. Rev. 1003 (2017)In today’s regulatory environment, a corporation engaged in wrongdoing can be sure of one thing: regulators will point to an ineffective compliance program as a key cause of institutional misconduct. The explosion in the importance of compliance is unsurprising given the emphasis that governmental actors—from the Department of Justice, to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to even the Commerce Department— place on the need for institutions to adopt “effective compliance programs.” The governmental actors that demand effective compliance programs, however, have narrow scopes of authority. DOJ Fraud handles violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the SEC adjudicates claims of misconduct under the securities laws, and the Federal Trade Commission deals with concerns regarding anticompetitive behavior. This segmentation of enforcement authority has created an information and coordination problem amongst regulators, resulting in an enforcement regime where institutional misconduct is adjudicated in a piecemeal fashion. Enforcement actions focus on compliance with a particular set of laws instead of on whether the corporate wrongdoing is a result of a systematic compliance failure that requires a comprehensive, firm-wide, compliance overhaul. As a result, the government’s goal of incentivizing companies to implement “effective ethics and compliance programs” appears at odds with its current enforcement approach. Yet governmental actors currently have the tools necessary to provide strong inducements for corporations to, when needed, engage in restructuring of their compliance programs. This Article argues that efforts to improve corporate compliance would benefit from regulatory mechanisms that (i) recognize when an institution is engaged in recidivist behavior across diverse regulatory areas and (ii) aggressively sanction institutions that are repeat offenders. If governmental actors adopt a new enforcement strategy aimed at “Coordinating Compliance Incentives,” they can more easily detect when an institution is suffering from a systemic compliance failure, which may deter firms from engaging in recidivist behavior. If corporations are held responsible for being repeat offenders across diverse regulatory areas, it may encourage them to implement more robust reforms to their compliance programs and, ultimately, lead to improved ethical conduct and more effective compliance programs within public companies.

US opioid curb will see health law spats

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Operating Capacity

Significance This followed Attorney General Jeff Sessions on February 27 announcing the Prescription Interdiction and Litigation task force, the latest government move to push back against opioids. Sessions said that the Department of Justice would pursue under the law those who unnecessarily or excessively prescribe opioids, including manufacturers and distributors, and support local governments’ lawsuits against these people. Impacts Drug lobbyists will fight anti-opioid lawsuits. Medical practitioners and drug distributors will face more intense scrutiny of their prescription decisions. Solving the drug problem could aid security and the economy, including productivity. States have disparate finance and operating capacity to tackle opioids; results will not be uniform. Cracking down on drugs would also need US law enforcement capacity enhancements, but funding here too is not necessarily sufficient.

Sanofi settles FCPA charges with SEC for $25.2 million

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kennedy Park ◽  
Abena Mainoo
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Internal Controls ◽  
Healthcare Industry ◽  
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
Compliance Programs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose To explain a recent enforcement action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) highlighting risk factors for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations. Design/methodology/approach Summarizes the basis of the SEC’s enforcement action against Sanofi for violating the FCPA’s books and records and internal controls provisions, reviews the terms of the SEC’s resolution with Sanofi, explains Sanofi’s remedial efforts and cooperation with the SEC’s investigation, and discusses factors contributing to corruption risks in the healthcare industry. Findings The SEC’s enforcement action against Sanofi, and other recent enforcement actions, underscore the importance of comprehensive anti-corruption compliance programs and strong internal controls across large multinationals and their subsidiaries. Practical implications Companies operating in high-risk industries and markets should regularly assess and address corruption risks. Originality/value Practical guidance from experienced enforcement lawyers.

SEC touts whistleblower award to a compliance professional – use care in responding to reports of potential violations

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-78
Author(s):  
Mark Srere ◽  
Mary Beth Buchanan ◽  
Elaine Koch ◽  
Jennifer Mammen ◽  
Tyson A. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Compliance Programs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Compliance Audit ◽  
Practical Guidance ◽  
Credible Information ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – To highlight the first award granted under the US Securities and Exchange Commission Whistleblower Program to a compliance professional. Design/methodology/approach – Explains the first award issued to a compliance professional under the SEC’s Whistleblower program and the rules for issuing such an award. Findings – The SEC has emphasized this award to a compliance professional, noting that individuals performing compliance, audit, and legal functions are on the front lines against fraud and corruption and are often privy to the very kinds of specific, timely, and credible information that can prevent an imminent fraud or stop an ongoing fraud. The SEC’s specific courting of compliance and audit personnel makes it even more important for companies to pay particular attention to complaints raised by those individuals. Practical implications – Companies should continue to take steps to ensure that they have vigorous compliance programs in place to detect potential issues and to respond immediately and effectively to internally reported information. Originality/value – Practical guidance from experienced regulatory and employment lawyers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document