Sky Blog
The coronavirus’ impact across the United States will make an epic, even Tolstoyan, saga, sweeping across all levels of American society and featuring brave heroes and tragic victims. But so far, this story has lacked one figure that every drama …
For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate criminal enforcement deters too much beneficial corporate activity or lets corporate criminals off too easily. This debate has recently grown more polarized: On …
On February 26, a long-running legal battle over the scope of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) took another turn when a federal trial court judge ordered that former Alstom executive Lawrence Hoskins be acquitted of the FCPA charges against …
To assist legal and compliance officers of financial institutions, this memorandum summarizes key recent developments in criminal prosecutions and regulatory enforcement actions involving financial institutions during November and December 2019.
Among the significant matters and trends:
2019 was, by many measures, the most significant year ever in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) enforcement. More than $2.6 billion in corporate fines sets a new high-water mark, driven by the two largest corporate resolutions in the statute’s history. …
On December 10, 2019, the Second Circuit, in Gamm v. Sanderson Farms, held that when a securities fraud complaint alleges that statements were rendered false or misleading through the non-disclosure of illegal activity, the facts of the underlying wrongdoing …
There is a worldwide debate over how to prevent overly aggressive corporate tax avoidance. In 2015, the Australian government doubled civil penalties on large multinational corporations that engage in the practice. Similarly, recent legislation in the United States, like the …
The United States pursues more successful corporate criminal enforcement actions against large multi-national firms than any other country, collecting enormous penalties and occupying center stage in the global enforcement arena. U.S. dominance draws its horsepower and its torque from two …
In a recent paper, we use new and proprietary micro-data from company-ratings site Glassdoor for the period between 2008 and 2016 to investigate changes in employees’ perception of firms and managers during periods of financial misconduct and after the public …
On October 8, 2019, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ” or the “Government”) issued new guidance for federal prosecutors to follow when corporations claim they are unable to pay a criminal fine or monetary penalty. For …
In a forthcoming paper, we explore the stock prices of companies during the period just before to just after an announcement that they have been hit with a computer breach. We analyze all available public equity data by breach type …
Many law enforcement agencies reduce punishments for corporations that report their own offenses. My research shows that these self-reporting schemes may help deter crime within a certain range of leniency. But the level of leniency has a U-shaped relationship with …
Companies that face non-public government investigations frequently confront challenging questions regarding whether and when to disclose the existence of the investigation, how much to disclose, and any duty to update the disclosure as the investigation proceeds. On the one hand, …
I am honored to be here representing the dedicated men and women of the Department of Justice. Like the SEC’s Enforcement staff, many of our prosecutors are tasked with investigating financial fraud and corporate crime. They are assigned to the
In 2016, hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (“Och-Ziff”) entered into one of the largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) resolutions ever: It agreed to pay a total of $412 million to the Department of Justice and the Securities and …
Responding to a request by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the EU’s data protection supervisory bodies released an initial joint opinion on the impact of the U.S. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data …
On July 30, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed civil contempt orders by the D.C. District Court against three Chinese banks for their failure to produce documents in response to U.S. government subpoenas relating …
On August 6, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) published new guidance on the steps companies should take in order to receive cooperation credit in the SFO’s charging decisions. The document, titled “Corporate Co-operation Guidance” (the “SFO Guidance”),[1]…
In Lorenzo v. SEC, the U.S. Supreme Court continued the struggle to define the difference between primary liability and aiding and abetting liability in Rule 10b-5 and other securities fraud claims. The difference matters because private plaintiffs do not have …
Cyber risk is a major concern to corporations and investors. Recent academic studies point out that firms suffer large negative returns when they disclose that they have suffered a data breach (e.g., Akey, Lewellen and Liskovich (2018) and Kamiya et …