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…
Privacy and Security Alert: Massachusetts Has New Data Security Regulations
Cynthia Larose, Elissa Flynn-Poppey and Julia M. Siripurapu of Mintz Levin Put together an alert with a a summary of the new Massachusetts Data Security Regulations: Privacy and Security Alert: Massachusetts New Data Security Regulations Effective January 1, 2009. The alert has a summary of some of the changes to the changes to the regulations…
Text of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
You can find the complet text of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on the Department of Justice’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act site. § 78dd-2. Prohibited foreign trade practices by domestic concerns (a) Prohibition It shall be unlawful for any domestic concern, other than an issuer which is subject to section 78dd-1 of this title, or…
Who is a Foreign Official under the FCPA?
The FCPA defines “foreign official” as: [A]ny officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, or a public international organization, or any person acting in an official capacity for or on behalf of any such government or department, agency, or instrumentality, or for or on behalf of any such…
Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists
The National Research Council has published a new report finding that all U.S. agencies with counterterrorism programs that collect personal data should be required to evaluate the programs’ effectiveness, lawfulness, and impacts on privacy. In its press release, they summarize that “Collecting and examining data to try to identify terrorists inevitably involves privacy violations, since…
Kay – Certiorari Denied
The U.S. Supreme Court will not be reviewing the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Kay v. U.S. (cert denied shows up page 8 of the Orders List from October 6, 2008.) Kay argued that the FCPA didn’t apply to bribes to reduce taxes, or that if it applied, the “obtaining or retaining” language in the law…
Social Networking for Lawyers and Legal IT
I had the pleasure of hosting a lunch meeting for the International Legal Technology Association to talk about Social Networking for Lawyers and Legal IT. I was joined by Jenn Steele and Bob Ambrogi in talking about Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, Twitter, Legal OnRamp and Martindale Connected. We looked at the ways we each use these…
Walking The Fine Line Of Compliance In China
Jeffrey M. Rawitz and Erica L. Reilley of Jones Day published an article in Mondaq: China: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Walking The Fine Line Of Compliance In China. Four Suggestions for Avoiding FCPA Complications in China Any company seeking to avoid potential FCPA problems in China, or elsewhere, should start by developing a rigorous…
Compliance and Cloud Computing
Sara Peters wrote an article on Security Provoked: How Can You Prove Compliance in the Cloud? Whether you’re in the midst of an audit or a forensic investigation, thorough logs are the key to proving compliance with security regulations. So how do you prove your organization is/was compliant when you aren’t able to maintain logs?…