These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.
Fantasy Football: A Real and Present Danger to the Workplace? by Daniel Schwartz in Connecticut Employment Law Blog
So to answer my own question in the title: No, fantasy football is not a critical threat to your business. But sometimes, fantasy football can be used support a claim of harassment or discrimination.
Fantasy football, despite its name, is a real industry and those companies that treat it as mere child’s play, do so at their own risk.
Pro Football and the FCPA Professor by Tom Fox in the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog
In football players certainly want to play hard but face penalties for playing too aggressively. I would add that sometimes there are grey areas in the rules that can get players into trouble. Moreover, just as each football team will have its own risk tolerance, businesses will as well. The Professor states, “The same is true for FCPA compliance. Business organizations, particularly those accountable to shareholders to increase value, should aggressively compete in the global marketplace to gain a competitive edge over competitors. Yet the practical reality is that much of what happens in the global marketplace can also fall into a gray area given the FCPA’s provisions, which have frequently been found to be vague and ambiguous when subjected to judicial scrutiny.
For Hedge Fund Whistleblower, Waiting Was the Hardest Part by Lillian Rizzo in WSJ.com’s Risk and Compliance Journal
When Frank Harrison decided in 2009 to go to the Federal Bureau of Investigation with allegations of fraud at hedge fund New Stream Capital LLC, he wasn’t prepared for one of the most nerve-wrecking aspects of being an informant—a long wait with little inkling of action being taken
The FBI’s Interesting Endgame with Michael Lucarelli by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week
Based on his trading patterns related to other client information, the FBI anticipated that Lucarelli might trade based on the Trex information. Indeed, a few days after the search, Lucarelli did purchase shares of Trex, and allegedly made nearly $90,000 in illegal profits when he sold the stock after the public disclosure of Trex’s improved sales and income caused its stock price to increase nearly 15%.
The SEC Brings Another Case Centered on the EB-5 Immigration Program by Thomas O. Gorman in SEC Actions
The government’s EB-5 program is supposed to be a win win for everyone. For immigrants seeking admission to the United States it is supposed to provide a path to citizenship if the requirements, centered on the investment of $500,000 or more in select projects, are met. For the U.S. it is a job creation mechanism since the investments from those seeking admission under the program, administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, are supposed to be used to create jobs in this country. Unfortunately the program is now at the center of yet another SEC enforcement action and a parallel criminal case. SEC v. Lee, Civil Action No. 2:14-cv-06865 (C.D. Cal. Filed September 3, 2014).
What Does Delaware’s Wal-Mart Decision Mean for the Attorney-Client Privilege and Internal Investigations? by Chip Phinney in Mintz Levin’s Securities Litigation and Compliance
In some respects the Wal-Mart decision is disconcerting for corporate counsel. It suggests that counsel conducting internal investigations of allegations of corporate wrongdoing should bear in mind the possibility that someday their privileged communications, which they assume to be confidential, may be subject to review by a shareholder plaintiff’s counsel seeking grounds to sue the corporation’s directors and officers. But the Walmart case involved unusual circumstances and should not be read as opening privileged communications by corporate counsel to widespread discovery in most shareholder litigation.
