Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
President Trump signed an executive order in February that paused all of the Department of Justice investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Perhaps lesser noticed was that the pause was to allow a review of enforcement policies. That review has happened and new guidelines are out. According to the memorandum, the Justice Department will resume investigating FCPA…
Long Live the FCPA!(?) President Trump pulled out his black sharpie and tried to kill the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The President’s executive order on February 10 stated: “Current FCPA enforcement impedes the United States’ foreign policy objectives and therefore implicates the President’s Article II authority over foreign affairs.” So companies should load up their…
Last week, the sentence of Michael Jarigese was upheld by an appellate court. Mr. Jarigese had been sentenced to 41 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release in connection with a bribery case. Mr. Jarigese was the vice president of Castle Construction Corporation, and the president of its successor company, Tower Contracting LLC,…
A quirky feature of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is that you can ask the Department of Justice to opine on whether your proposed action would violate the FCPA. Generally, one or two of these FCPA opinions pop up each year. It’s been a six-year drought since the last one. Some of the FCPA opinions…
>The Trump Administration took great pride in tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement and imposing a new framework for trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Of course it had to be re-branded, with “America First”, as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. This refreshed version of NAFTA includes some increased labor protections for workers,…
I’m not sure how I missed the sad tale of Joohyun Bahn before now. He agreed to an SEC order last week for FCPA violations. This was in connection with his criminal sentencing that also happened last week, after first being arrested in January 2017. It’s uncommon for real estate to insect with the FCPA,…
Back in 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission made it clear that providing jobs to family members of foreign government officials could be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That SEC investigation found that BNY Mellon did not evaluate or hire the family members in accordance with its hiring standards and require a…
One thing that is clear about bribery and corruption is that the payments are not always envelopes full of cash. The FCPA opinions have long pointed out that directing charitable donations to the decision-makers “pet” charity could be a bribe. As former Director of the the Division of Enforcement at the SEC, Andrew Ceresney pointed…
The case for self-reporting failures has always been a nebulous promise from the government that the enforcement will be more lenient than if not self-reported. There has been limited proof that this has been true. That may be largely because we don’t hear about the self-reported problems because there is little to no government action…
I was looking through an issue under Rule 206(4)-5. The Securities and Exchange Commission limits the ability of investment advisers and fund managers to contribute to certain politicians that can influence investment decisions for state pension funds. Under Rule 206(4)-5, you can contribute up to $150 to any candidate or up to $350 if you can vote…