Double Blast of FCPA News

fcpa

Keep up, compliance officers! A subsidiary of global consulting giant McKinsey agreed today to pay $122.8 million to settle FCPA charges in South Africa; and the Justice Department says it might allow some companies currently under corporate integrity agreements to exit those agreements early.  Those are very different news stories, so we’ll take each one…

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Four Reasons to Watch the Adani Case

Adani

Sometimes a tale of corporate corruption comes along that perfectly captures all the issues that ethics and compliance professionals face in our line of work. Such is the case with the Adani Group, and compliance officers everywhere should watch it closely; it could be a hugely telling case for corruption enforcement in 2025.  By now…

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Corporate Enforcement Policy Tweaked Again

Justice

The Justice Department is relaxing its approach to corporate criminal enforcement yet again, this time giving companies a bit more breathing room for what counts as “self-disclosure” and “significant profit” — all to further entice companies to step forward and admit legal violations, so that those violations can be resolved more quickly. Nicole Argentieri, deputy…

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Betting/Bitcoin Biz Settles FCPA Charges

fcpa

Federal prosecutors have sanctioned a one-time Chinese online lottery business turned bitcoin mining operation for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, where senior executives bribed Japanese lawmakers in the late 2010s to win permissions to open a casino there — and good lord, writing that sentence feels like hitting some sort of corruption risk…

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Telefónica Pays $85M on FCPA Fails

Telefónica

The Latin American telecom giant Telefónica settled FCPA charges late last week, paying $85 million and reminding everyone that at least for now (and possibly for a good long while yet), the world of corporate compliance and FCPA enforcement continues to turn. Let’s take a look at the lessons we can learn here. The Justice…

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More Questions on Trump II and Compliance

Let’s keep talking about what Donald Trump’s return to power means for the corporate compliance profession because, honestly, what else is there to talk about right now? I’ve spoken with compliance officers all week long about Trump’s victory, and most folks were bewildered, dispirited, anxious, or some blend of all three. Their comments are telling.…

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RTX Settles Multiple Charges

rtx

Defense contractor RTX Corp. will pay more than $950 million to settle multiple criminal cases pending against it, including FCPA and export control violations in the Middle East and government contract fraud here at home. Compliance officers have a few different threads to unravel here, so let’s get to it. The Justice Department announced the…

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Moog Dinged on FCPA Violations

Moog

The Securities and Exchange Commission served up a rather hum-drum FCPA enforcement action last week. While the case certainly isn’t a show-stopper, it does offer compliance professionals a few insights about corporate corruption; so let’s fulfill our due diligence obligations and study it. The company is Moog Inc., maker of motion controls systems for aerospace,…

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Lessons From Deere FCPA Sanction

Deere

Deere & Co. is paying $10 million to settle one of the more colorful FCPA cases we’ve seen in a while, replete with Thai massage parlors, envelopes of cash, sketchy overseas agents — and even a few lessons about compliance fundamentals from due diligence of acquisitions to program remediation. Let’s take a look. The Securities…

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BCG Scores FCPA Declination

declination

The Justice Department has decided not to bring FCPA charges against Boston Consulting Group, crediting the firm for its prompt self-disclosure of bribery problems in Africa and for the painful financial consequences it imposed on the offending employees. Let’s dig into the declination letter and see what lessons the rest of the corporate compliance community…

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