Episode 315 - Boeing Pays $51 Million for ITAR Violations
Last week, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against global cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and two of its founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, for allegedly conspiring...more
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, has recently been hit with a staggering $4.3 billion fine for intentionally violating anti-money laundering laws and other financial regulations. This landmark...more
2022 saw a big shift in the geo-political climate and a bedding in of the new hybrid working world. These two developments are reflected in the blogs our subscribers were most interested in reading. Readers remain focused on...more
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has had a rough year in the criminal arena. While the Antitrust Division has aggressively blocked several proposed mergers, it has lost several significant criminal cases. ...more
NatWest pleaded guilty on Thursday 7 October 2021 to criminal charges brought by the UK financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”). The FCA had charged NatWest with failing to properly monitor...more
Payoneer, Inc., an online money transmitter and prepaid access company, agreed to pay $1.4 million to OFAC to settle violations of multiple sanctions programs. ...more
The scandal emanating from the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad fund (1MDB) continues to ripple through criminal law enforcement and criminal prosecutions. ...more
The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) inaugural use of its criminal money laundering powers under Regulation 45 of the UK Money Laundering Regulations 2007 (MLR) against NatWest is viewed by many as a warning shot to...more
In a harbinger of future enforcement actions surrounding AML compliance program violations, the Treasury Department’s The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced a $390 million settlement with Capital One for...more
The Justice Department continues to pursue criminal cases against Venezuelan officials at Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) in an attempt to strangle President Nicolas Maduro. DOJ has been pursuing a three-pronged strategy...more
On 12 March 2020, the UK Gambling Commission announced that it will fine online gambling business Betway Limited (“Betway”) £11.6 million for failures in respect of its anti-money laundering controls and handling of seven of...more
AML Scandals Seem to Inevitably Spawn Investor Lawsuits - As we recently blogged, Westpac, Australia’s second-largest retail bank, has been embroiled in a scandal arising from approximately 23 million alleged breaches of...more
Goldman Sachs is reportedly in negotiations with federal prosecutors to resolve claims about its role in the Malaysian 1MDB scandal for upwards of $2 billion. A settlement—which “could include a guilty plea from Goldman’s...more
I thought Frosty was a good analogy to consider the disgraced Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s former partner Tim Leissner, as he is certainly back again. Yesterday, I begin a two-part blog post series on Leissner’s settlement with...more
Last week, a jury found a former executive of a French multinational company guilty of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with alleged bribery in Indonesia....more
Settlement Applies to $700 Million in Luxury Assets; Law Firms Obtain a Carve-Out - Last week, the Justice Department announced a massive settlement in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (“1MDB”) case, a matter implicating...more
This week I am mining the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, for what they might mean for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...more
As reported by Byron Tau and Aruna Viswanatha in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Jho Low, the businessman-turned-fugitive accused of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud involving Malaysia’s sovereign-wealth fund, agreed...more
It seems somehow fitting this week in the midst of the Astros inexorable march back to the World Series that we honor the only baseball player across the globe simply known as “The Emperor”. He was, of course, Masaichi Kaneda...more
Danske Bank is likely to again become the target of a formal investigation in France. A Paris court began investigating Danske Bank in October 2017 in relation to transactions of its Estonian branch, between 2008 and 2011,...more
For the first time, a broker-dealer, Central States Capital Markets, LLC (Central States), has been prosecuted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). ...more
NYDFS Action Highlights the Need for Good Monitoring – and Good Consultants - In part one of this two-part post, we provided some practical tips for financial institutions to increase the chances that their Anti-Money...more
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (“CBA”), the largest bank in Australia, has agreed to a proposed civil settlement — subject to court approval — of historic proportions, involving a fine of approximately $700 million Australian...more
A recent anti-money laundering (“AML”) enforcement action reminds us of the increasing risk of individual liability for alleged violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”), a key issue about which we have blogged....more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the decision of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) to issue a cease and desist order against California Pacific Bank (the “Bank”)...more