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White Collar
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August 20, 2012
Treasury Taps DOJ Veteran To Head Financial Crimes Bureau
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said Monday that it had hired a U.S. Department of Justice veteran as the new head of its financial crimes bureau after the sudden departure of her predecessor earlier this year.
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August 14, 2012
Lawmakers Pressure Wal-Mart To Comply With FCPA Probe
Top House Democrats told Wal-Mart Stores Inc. it had one last chance to cooperate with their investigation of alleged corruption in the megachain's Mexican operations before they go public with the findings, which include additional suggestions of "questionable financial behavior," according to a letter sent Tuesday.
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August 14, 2012
Hyde Ruling Sparks Battle Over Prosecutorial Misconduct
With a group of former judges and prosecutors urging the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to define the scope of the Hyde Amendment, a battle is looming over whether defendants like the late Sen. Ted Stevens should be compensated for defending themselves against malicious, frivolous or otherwise mishandled prosecutions.
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August 14, 2012
$340M Standard Chartered Deal Shows New Watchdog Can Bite
The New York Department of Financial Services' $340 million settlement with Standard Chartered PLC not only brought a swift end to the agency's allegations that the British bank helped Iranian government-backed banks transfer more than $250 billion in violation of U.S. sanctions, but also marked the arrival of a new and aggressive regulator, experts say.
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August 14, 2012
HSBC To Hire Ex-OFAC Chief To Monitor Bank Practices
HSBC Holdings PLC is expected to hire the former director of the U.S. government's Office of Foreign Assets Control to a new position overseeing banking standards as it continues to navigate the fallout of allegations that it allowed Mexican drug cartels and groups with terrorist ties to launder money.
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August 13, 2012
House Committee Sues Holder Over Fast And Furious Docs
A U.S. House of Representatives committee sued Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday over his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena and turn over internal documents related to the infamous “Fast and Furious” gun-walking operation.
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August 10, 2012
Keeping Libor 'Not A Viable Option,' UK Panel Says
British regulators from the Financial Services Authority said Friday that the current system for setting the scandal-plagued Libor is “not a viable option” any longer and proposed that the process be strengthened, even as alternatives were explored.
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August 8, 2012
DOJ Taps Prosecutor As First Whistleblower Ombudsman
The U.S. Department of Justice has appointed a former federal prosecutor as its whistleblower ombudsman, the department said Monday, a new position a legal expert says could signal the government's increased reliance on whistleblowers to uncover fraud and abuse.
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August 7, 2012
Cartel Whistleblower Bill May Fall Short In Boosting DOJ Cases
A new bill shielding cartel whistleblowers from retaliation by their employers is unlikely to help the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal antitrust enforcement efforts because it doesn't provide financial incentives for workers to come forward, attorneys say.
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August 7, 2012
Sens. Float Contract Ban For UTC Unit After $75M Plea
Two influential U.S. senators said Monday the Pentagon should consider barring contracts to a United Technologies Corp. unit that recently pled guilty in a $75 million settlement over illegal exports of military software used to develop China's first modern military attack helicopter.
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August 2, 2012
Sens. Want Detailed Cost-Benefit Studies For New Regs
Legislation introduced Wednesday in the U.S. Senate would authorize the president to require cost-benefit analyses of new regulations from independent federal agencies that supervise companies in financial services, telecommunications and other sectors — a proposal some observers call a backdoor method of neutralizing effective oversight.
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August 1, 2012
DOL Probes Peregrine's Retirement Plan After Collapse
The U.S. Department of Labor has opened an investigation into Peregrine Financial Group Inc.'s employee retirement plan, heaping more regulatory scrutiny on the collapsed futures firm and its alleged theft of some $200 million in customer funds, Peregrine's bankruptcy trustee said on Wednesday.
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July 31, 2012
Lawmakers Propose Antitrust Whistleblower Protections
Two U.S. senators on Tuesday introduced legislation that would extend whistleblower protections to employees who give the U.S. Department of Justice information in criminal antitrust investigations.
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July 31, 2012
NJ Bill Seeks Permanent Ban For Fraudulent Vendors
New Jersey public contractors convicted of fraud involving their government work would be permanently barred from future bidding opportunities under a bill announced Tuesday.
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July 30, 2012
UK Will Examine New Methods To Set Libor
The U.K. said Monday that a high-level review of the process for setting Libor will include a discussion of whether regulators should have more power over the rate-setting process, as the rate-rigging scandal focused on the key interest rate continues to unfold.
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July 27, 2012
US Develops Int'l Agreement To Combat Offshore Tax Evasion
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday unveiled an intergovernmental framework designed to comply with reporting requirements for foreign banks implemented under the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, adopted in 2010 to fight tax evasion by U.S. citizens.
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July 26, 2012
Senate Sends Sequestration Transparency Act To President
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed the Sequestration Transparency Act, a bill that would force the Office of Management and Budget to disclose its plans to address sequestration, a series of $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts set to apply to federal agencies' budgets on Jan. 2.
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July 25, 2012
CFTC Access To Firm Accounts Could Prevent Future Peregrines
Weeks after Peregrine Financial Group Inc. was revealed as a fraud in the latest scandal to rock the futures industry, U.S. financial regulators are demanding electronic access to brokerage accounts, a move experts say could help ensure the protection of customer funds and prevent another multimillion-dollar theft.
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July 25, 2012
EU Regulators Lay Out Plans For Rate-Fixing Crimes
Two top European Commission regulators on Wednesday pushed their proposals for criminalizing the manipulation of key banking benchmarks like the London Interbank Offered Rate, with one singling out the Bank of England as an example of self-regulation gone awry.
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July 24, 2012
EU Markets Regulator Wants To Criminalize Libor Rigging
The European Commission's chief markets regulator said Tuesday that he would propose criminalizing the manipulation of key banking benchmarks — including the London Interbank Offered Rate — in the wake of allegations that major banks participated in widespread interest rate-rigging.
Expert Analysis
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What You Should Know About The New Trade Secrets Laws
Although two new trade secret laws — the Trade Secret Clarification Act and the Foreign and Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act — significantly increase the risks faced by an employee or other person who takes an organization’s trade secrets, neither the government nor the organization will succeed in protecting those secrets unless the organization takes appropriate measures to protect them before they are stolen, say attorneys with Dechert LLP.
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EMR Adoption May Be Riskier Than Expected
As has always been the case, with technology comes risk. And for the medical providers who adopt electronic medical records, that risk may include not only a lack of utility or benefit, but also heightened scrutiny, more frequent investigation and even the specter of prosecution by the very government that promoted the switch to EMRs in the first place, says Robert Radick of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC.
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A Gambling Case Software Developers Should Watch Closely
The Supreme Court of New York recently conducted a hearing in a criminal case in which a software developer is accused of aiding and abetting illegal gambling. The strength of the district attorney's case remains to be seen, but prosecution of a software developer for crimes committed by its users sets a dangerous precedent and starts the country down a slippery slope of prosecuting people for others' acts, say attorneys with Perkins Coie LLP.
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Data Mining: What Financial Services Firms Need To Know
As a general rule, the use of mined data does not violate legal requirements. However, the fast-growing data-mining industry is raising concern among federal regulators and policy makers. A hedge fund or other financial services firm that uses data-mined information should establish controls and surveillance to address potential insider trading, privacy and other risks, say Henry Massey and Megan Tlusty of Day Pitney LLP.
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Smith V. US: Impact On Defense Of Conspiracy Charges
In Smith v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court recently confronted the difficult question of who is responsible for proving withdrawal from a conspiracy — the government or the accused. The court resolved the issue by placing the burden on the accused, which has significant implications for the defense of conspiracy charges, say Pablo Quinones and Jill Ottenberg of Reed Smith LLP.
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E-Waste Case Could Bring Changes To E-Waste Recycling Laws
In the first case of its kind, a jury in Colorado recently found an electronic waste recycling company and two of its executives guilty of illegally exporting e-waste overseas, in addition to other criminal charges. The implications of this case are broad and the convictions could serve as a catalyst for federal regulation of e-waste, says Peggy Otum of Arnold & Porter LLP.
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Pharma Exec Criminal Convictions And HHS Program Bans
For pharmaceutical executives facing criminal charges, the elephant in the room is the risk that a conviction will result in mandatory exclusion from participation in federal health care programs. A California federal court's decision in the ex-InterMune Inc. CEO case has the potential to refine the rules governing orders of exclusion, a collateral consequence that may be more severe than the sentence itself for a convicted pharmaceutical executive, say Michele Adelman and Dan McFadden of Foley Hoag LLP.
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Insider Trading In 2012: Back To The Future — Part 2
The special agents supervising the FBI’s N.Y.-based securities and commodities fraud squads have predicted five more years of intense insider trading prosecutions, noting that there are approximately 240 individuals under investigation. Four years from now will mark the 20th anniversary of O’Hagan, and perhaps the time for the high court to take a closer look at what prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have been up to — if not sooner, say Tim Coleman and Jonathan Ware of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
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Insider Trading In 2012: Back To The Future — Part 1
2012 was a banner year for prosecution of insider trading. The themes and theories arising in recent cases, however, are a reprise of the 1980s. In particular, defendants in the Southern District of New York are battling what it means to trade “on the basis of” material nonpublic information, and how to shape the complex overlap between the concepts of materiality and nonpublic information, say Tim Coleman and Jonathan Ware of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
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Tone At The Top: More Than Just Jargon
The resource guide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act notes that compliance must start at the top. Setting the right tone has the potential to prevent ethical violations — thereby eliminating the need for enforcement actions — and the potential to mitigate any enforcement actions should they occur. Companies must understand the board of directors’ role in creating a culture of compliance and how corporate leadership can communicate its message effectively, say HL Rogers and Kristin Knapp of Sidley Austin LLP.