Management can own honesty or deceit. So pick one

At Fresenius Medical Care, according to a recent post on the FCPA Blog, management owned the graft and senior executives directed the bribery and the global cover up. The failures were both wide and deep, where “legal, compliance, and internal audit functions failed to detect and prevent the bribery,” the company said in an SEC filing.

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Are settlements a deterrent or a dodge?

The DOJ has unveiled new guidance to federal prosecutors about bringing criminal cases against individuals in instances of corporate wrongdoing.

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How Alcoa avoided a $1 billion criminal fine while others got hammered

Leslie Caldwell, chief of the DOJ's criminal division, talked at last week's Annual Ethics and Compliance Conference in Atlanta. She covered the ten hallmarks of an effective compliance program and cooperation with the DOJ in FCPA and other white-collar investigations. Her examples of good and bad corporate behavior came from real life.

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StanChart faces New York action for high-risk transactions

Two years after state and federal authorities punished British bank Standard Chartered for doing business with sanctioned countries like Iran, it has once again become the subject of an investigation for failing to weed out other risky transactions.

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Bank of America pays $16.6 million for violating drug trafficker sanctions

Bank of America Corp's banking unit agreed to pay $16.6 million to resolve allegations that it processed hundreds of transactions for drug traffickers who are subject to U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday.

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BNP Paribas hit with $80 million false claims judgment

BNP Paribas image courtesy of Rt.com via YouTubeThe DOJ said Thursday that a federal court entered an $80 million False Claims Act judgment against French bank BNP Paribas for defrauding a taxpayer-funded program designed to encourage American exports.

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BNP compliance staff first warned top execs, but later disguised misconduct

Image courtesy of RT.com via YouTubeBNP Paribas SA ignored the warnings of its compliance staff as the bank broke U.S. sanctions, but the compliance team helped hide the origins of the transactions from U.S. authorities, according to the bank's guilty plea this week.

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Judge accepts BNP guilty plea for sanction offenses

BNP Paribas pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge of violating U.S. economic sanctions by processing transactions for clients in blacklisted countries, a development that a U.S. judge said should shows that no financial institution is "immune from the rule of law."

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Who should pay for BNP's crimes?

On June 30, the Justice Department and other federal and state agencies announced the long awaited settlement in the BNP case. The bank forfeited $8.8 billion and paid fines of $140 million for the “hat-trick of sanctions violations” -- unlawfully offering the U.S. financial markets to three sanctioned countries: Sudan, Iran and Cuba.

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BNP admits guilt, fined $8.9 billion for U.S. sanctions violations

Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas (Image courtesy of Euro Business Media via YouTube)French banking giant BNP Paribas agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay an $8.9 billion penalty for transferring billions of dollars on behalf of blacklisted Sudan, Iran and Cuba, U.S. authorities said Monday.

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U.S. probes two French banks for possible sanctions, AML violations

French banks Societe Generale and Credit Agricole are being investigated by U.S. authorities for alleged money laundering and economic sanction breaches involving Iran, Cuba and Sudan.

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