As a real estate company, we restrict trading in real estate companies. What is the best way to maintain that list. One source is the NAREIT list of REITs and other publicly-traded real estate companies. This list is more exhaustive than the list of publicly traded REITs.
U.S. v. King
U.S. v. King (.pdf) was a FCPA case that came out of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals on appeal from the USDC for the Western District of Missouri. The defendant was convicted of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with a scheme to bribe Costa Rican officials for valuable land concessions to…
Contingent Fee Arrangements in Government Contracts
Section 3.400 of the Federal Acquistion Regulations limit the ability of the federal governmen to enter into contingent fee arrangements. Federal contracts require the insertion of the Covenant Against Contingent Fees: (a) The Contractor warrants that no person or agency has been employed or retained to solicit or obtain this contract upon an agreement or…
Anti-Kickback Act
The Anti-Kickback Act of 1986, 41 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., modernized and closed the loopholes of previous statutes applying to government contractors. The 1986 law attempts to make the anti-kickback statute a more useful prosecutorial tool by expanding the definition of prohibited conduct and by making the statute applicable to a broader range of…
Gratuities Clause
Section 3.201 of the Federal Acquisition Regulations requires the Gratuities Clause in all federal government contracts: (a) The right of the Contractor to proceed may be terminated by written notice if, after notice and hearing, the agency head or a designee determines that the Contractor, its agent, or another representative— (1) Offered or gave a…
Bribery of Public Officials
18 U.S.C. § 201 prohibits the bribery of public officials. “Public Officials” means “Member of Congress, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, either before or after such official has qualified, or an officer or employee or person acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, including the…
OCEG Webcast on Code of Conduct
Scott Mitchell, Chairman and of the Open Compliance & Ethics Group, and Brett Curran, Director of GRC and Privacy at Axentis, conducted a webinar on the Code of Conduct. The powerpoint slides are free, but the webinar itself requires a premium membership. These are some metrics they propose for measuring the performance of a Code…
Ding Dong, FCPA Calling
Avon, the beauty products seller, announced that is voluntarily conducting an investigation of its China Operations, focusing on compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “The Company, under the oversight of the Audit Committee, commenced in June 2008 an internal investigation after it received an allegation that certain travel, entertainment and other expenses may have…
James H. Fries, Jr. on The Objectives and Conduct of Bank Secrecy Act Enforcement
James H. Fries, Jr., the Director of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the U.S. Department of Treasury spoke about The Objectives and Conduct of Bank Secrecy Act Enforcement at the ABA/ABA Money Laundering Enforcement Conference in Washington D.C. on October 20, 2008. “An essential principle of FinCEN’s enforcement program is to uphold the public policy…
New Massachusetts Regulations to Mandate Comprehensive Information Security Requirements
Goodwin Procter LLP published a summary of the New Massachusetts Regulations to Mandate Comprehensive Information Security Requirements. The regulations have broad coverage, applying to all entities that own, license, store or maintain personal information about residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, regardless of whether or not the entity has operations in the Commonwealth. Federally regulated…