This post was also written by Pablo Quiñones. On March 20, 2012, a New York federal judge ordered Chip Skowron to pay $10 million in restitution to Morgan Stanley as a corporate victim of his insider trading and obstruction of justice schemes. The Skowron decision is a significant victory for corporate victims of insider trading, … Continue Reading
In two decisions issued last week, the Ninth Circuit and Second Circuit interpreted three different federal statutes – the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the National Stolen Property Act (NSPA), and the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) – in ways that narrowed federal prosecutors’ ability to charge former employees for stealing proprietary information from their … Continue Reading
This post was written by Robert Falkner and Tom Webley. In March 2012, The Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) published the results of its thematic review into the policies and procedures that investment banks have in place to prevent their employees from paying or receiving bribes. Click here for more information on the background to this … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Pablo Quinones and Joseph Prater. On March 23, 2012, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced that it had entered into cooperation arrangements with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (“CIMA”) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) in its continuing effort to improve global regulation of transnational … Continue Reading
This post was written by Andrew Bernasconi and Nathan Fennessy. In yet another reminder about the importance of maintaining evidence on company-issued laptops, BlackBerrys, or other electronic devices, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California recently sanctioned a qui tam relator for destroying more than 10,000 documents on his company-issued laptop. Moore … Continue Reading
This post was written by Rosanne M. Kay. Word on the street is that the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) has a number of active investigations into potential offences under the Bribery Act 2010. So far, the Bribery Act has only been used in a reasonably minor prosecution of a court clerk who took bribes … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Emma Osborne. The UK Bribery Act 2010 has increased the focus placed on anti-bribery and anti-corruption not only by the Serious Fraud Office (‘SFO’) but also by the Financial Services Authority (‘FSA’). Anti-bribery issues fall within the FSA’s statutory objective to reduce financial crime and bribery continues to be … Continue Reading
This post was written by Matthew R. Sheldon and Alexander Y. Thomas. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing a lower court decision disqualifying a former in-house attorney from acting as a False Claims Act qui tam relator against his former employer. The relator was formerly general counsel to Unilab, a subsidiary of Quest … Continue Reading
A new rule, adopted on 29 December 2011 and published on 30 December 2011 after an unusually expedited procedure due to strong government pressure, will heavily modify the regulatory framework in which healthcare companies, but also to some extent cosmetics companies, operate in France. Besides replacing (next August, but the law has immediately been enforced) … Continue Reading
A little clarity on CBP Regulations. For those of you not paying attention, the UK would really like bribery payments to stop. Here is my post, about a post, about a post. Follow the rabbit hole, for a discussion about small businesses being impacted by premium payments to government contractors. What’s going on with satellites? … Continue Reading
This post was written by Simon Hart. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has stepped up its attempts to persuade employees and professional advisors to blow the whistle on fraudulent or corrupt practices within the organisations they serve. The SFO has announced a new “SFO Confidential” service that allows whistleblowers to report concerns either by … Continue Reading
The Wolfsberg Group recently published its Anti-Corruption Guidance, which leads me to assume that someone, somewhere, is drafting Corruption Guidance. Perhaps those old cartoons were on to something? More evidence that when it comes to cloud computing, no one knows what to do. People do bad things on the internet? Say it ain’t so. For … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Emma Osborne. The first person to be charged under the new UK Bribery Act, a magistrates court clerk, was convicted by Southwark Crown Court on Friday, 14 October 2011. The court clerk, 22 year old Mr Munir Yakub Patel, was convicted under Section 2 of the Bribery Act for … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Fionnuala Lynch. Earlier this month, Richard Alderman, Director of the SFO, was speaking at an international symposium on economic crime in Cambridge and made an interesting point which has been picked up by many UK newspapers. He referred to the fact that 20 years ago, it was possible for … Continue Reading
The first person to be charged under the new Bribery Act will be a magistrates court clerk who allegedly accepted £500 for fixing a motoring offence. The Crown Prosecution Service (“CPS”) has decided to prosecute Munir Yakub Patel who faces a charge under Section 2 of the Bribery Act for allegedly requesting and receiving a … Continue Reading
Election cycle 2012, now featuring the candidate specific Super PAC. I’ve made Clint Eastwood references in these pages before, and while I hate to repeat myself, this article on the DoD Inspector General audit is literally called The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. If the Brookings Institute can’t wrap their collective heads around cloud … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Leonard E. Hudson. The Department of Justice suffered a “stinging” setback to its widely touted FCPA Africa Sting prosecution late last week when the first of four anticipated trials based upon its most aggressive Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation to date ended in a mistrial. The jury deadlocked after … Continue Reading
The Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) recently announced its intention to carry out a thematic investigation of the policies and procedures that investment banks have in place to prevent their staff and agents from paying or receiving bribes. Click here for the full speech. This coincides with the coming into force of the Bribery Act 2010 … Continue Reading
This post was written by Simon D. Hart. With the coming into force of the UK’s Bribery Act 2010 today, companies will be reviewing and revising a wide range of documents, policies and procedures across their organisation. Whilst in-house Counsel will almost certainly have been at the forefront of any internal review to ensure the company’s … Continue Reading
Of Russians and nuclear energy … Line of the Day goes to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) from this article about the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdictions Act: “CEJA will also protect Americans by providing the option of prosecuting them in the United States.” Finally, what we have all been waiting for, multiple international jurisdictions chomping at the … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Simon Hart. The Director of the Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) has recently articulated a robust interpretation of the SFO’s jurisdiction under the UK’s Bribery Act 2010, which comes into force on 1 July 2011. In doing so, the Director has challenged the understanding of many companies and their advisors. … Continue Reading
This post was written by George Hoare. On 6 June 2011, the European Commission (EC) outlined measures to tackle the problem of corruption within the European Union (EU). According to figures quoted in the press release, four out of five EU citizens regard corruption as a major problem in their Member State, with corruption estimated … Continue Reading
This post was written by Simon D. Hart. After months of speculation, and rumoured turf wars within the UK government, it has today been confirmed that the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) will not be broken up and will remain independent of the new National Crime Agency (“NCA”). The SFO will retain both its investigative … Continue Reading
The US military does the Hokey Pokey in Iraq. Edward Siedle of Forbes provides some insight into the failure of effective whistleblower enforcement. The Obama Export Initiative is starting to resemble Punxsutawney Phil, whenever either rear their head we are left with several months of the same. Ezra Klein is back at it, this time breaking … Continue Reading
