The U.K. Bribery Act 2010: What Does it Mean for Multinationals?
By Ellen Zimiles, Joseph Spinelli, and Scott Moritz
Daylight Forensic & Advisory - FCPA Alert, April, 2010

On April 9, 2010, the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 (“Act”) received royal assent. The Act consolidates and modernizes previously existing U.K. anti-bribery and corruption laws and is intended to alleviate criticism that U.K. anti-bribery and corruption enforcement efforts have been insufficiently robust. In addition to creating four new substantive bribery and corruption offenses, the Act differs from the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) in a number of respects. Read More.

Finding the Worm in the Apple
By Scott Moritz & Thomas R. Fox
April 5, 2010

The risk of engaging a third party overseas is becoming an increasing concern of U.S. companies that do business internationally. In a recent speech given at the Global Ethics Summit, sponsored by Dow Jones and Ethisphere, Mark Mendelsohn, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section at the Department of Justice (DOJ), highlighted the U.S. government’s continuing use of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to charge both companies and individuals with criminal violations. He went on to point out that even the “slightest” connection with the United States could Read More.

The 5 Most Important Considerations in Evaluating Third Party FCPA Risk
By Scott Moritz, Executive Director
March 31, 2010

Global organizations maintain tens of thousands of commercial relationships with businesses and individuals that represent widely divergent risk. In the majority of FCPA enforcement actions reported, the improper payments are made indirectly through one or more third parties. As a result, the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission and international law enforcement and regulatory bodies are paying close attention to what companies are doing to identify high risk third parties and the heightened standard of care to which these riskier relationships are being held. To properly mitigate the risks associated with third parties requires an enterprise-wide, risk-based approach. If your organization is contemplating such an approach, here are a few important issues to consider: Read More.

Anti-corruption - FCPA enforcement in 2010 and beyond: A business integrity officer’s perspective
By Andrea Bonime-Blanc
March 10, 2010, www.ethicalcorp.com

Andrea Bonime-Blanc looks at what 2010 holds for enforcement of the 1977 US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

The United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) under the Obama Administration has ratcheted up Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement even beyond what the Bush Administration started in recent years. The US DOJ, especially through its Criminal Division Chief, Lanny Breuer, has been vociferous about what it intends to do next on FCPA enforcement. Read More.

Senate Subcommittee Report: Identifying PEPs and Foreign Corruption: Who Else Should Be Responsible?
By Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight Forensic & Advisory Regulatory Compliance Update, February 10, 2010

On February 4, 2010, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) issued a report entitled “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Case Histories.” This report, through the use of four illustrative case studies, analyzes how Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) have used various professionals–lawyers, realtors, escrow agents and lobbyists–as well as financial institutions to thwart U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-corruption defenses. The report describes how certain PEPs were able to exploit unregulated industries and professionals to integrate the likely proceeds of corruption into the U.S. as well as provide recommendations to strengthen U.S. AML and PEP controls. The report draws a clear correlation between foreign corruption and money laundering activity in the U.S. Read More.

FINRA Takes Enforcement Actions Against Two Broker-Dealers for AML Program Failures
By Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight Forensic's Regulatory Compliance Update, February 5, 2010

On February 2, 2010, FINRA announced enforcement actions against two registered broker-dealers, Penson Financial Services, Inc. and Pinnacle Capital Markets, LLC, based on, among other things, various deficiencies in their anti-money laundering compliance programs (AML programs). The firms settled the matters by consenting to FINRA’s findings as well as fines and disciplinary actions. Read More.

Business and the Way of Democracy

By Andrea Bonime-Blanc, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, Daylight Forensic and Advisory
and Mark Brzezinski, Partner, McGuire Woods
The New York Times, December 25, 2009

Much like transitions to democracy over the past four decades transformed governments from mostly authoritarian to mostly democratic, we are currently witnessing a transformation of global corporations from a more or less opaque shareholder-centric model to a more transparent multi-stakeholder model.

The 1970s witnessed the beginning of a global trend toward the democratization of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. This first appeared in Greece with a coup that led to democracy, continued in Portugal and culminated in Spain with a paradigmatic transition from Franco to democratic government. To this day all three countries continue to be thriving democracies. Read More.

Responses and interviews on the op-ed article:
December 29, 2009 - Five ways business is responding to the “transparency imperative” Ethical Corporation Blog
December 31, 2009 – A Transparent Corporate World The Global Graft Report
December 31, 2009 – The Gauge of Process The Global Graft Report.

Government's Industry Focus Puts Pharma Executives at Risk

Daylight - Lachman FCPA Update
December 16, 2009

Enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is at an all time high, targeting individual executives and board members as well as companies. Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, Department of Justice, made two separate speeches last month emphasizing the DOJ's focus on the pharmaceutical and medical device industries for potential FCPA violations. Mr. Breuer remarked that the DOJ, in collaboration with the FBI, IRS, FDA and other governmental agencies, is currently pursuing more than 130 active investigations. Read More.

Facilitation Payments: A business integrity officer’s perspective

In the second of her regular series of articles on bribery and corruption issues, Andrea Bonime-Blanc considers the thorny issue of facilitation payments, how they are used, and if they are acceptable

By Andrea Bonime-Blanc
www.ethicalcorp.com, December 16, 2009

More than thirty years after the inception of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA), twelve years after the signing of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of 1997, and half a decade since the adoption of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption of 2004, one of the still grey areas in the anti-corruption debate is the topic of whether “facilitation payments” should be made. Read More.

Ethics and the Board: Integrating Integrity into Business Strategy
Andrea Bonime-Blanc, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer and Jacqueline E. Brevard
The Conference Board, November 12, 2009

In an era of cataclysmic repercussions of ethical breaches throughout the world, it is critical for senior management and even more so for boards of directors to exercise proactive oversight on issues of business integrity and compliance. This report provides a 360-degree, high level Read More.

On October 26, 2009, FINRA announced an enforcement action against Scottrade, Inc. based on its failure to implement Read More.

What CEOs and CECOs Can Do Today
Andrea Bonime-Blanc, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel
ECOA Weekly NewsWatch, November 1, 2009

Despite what would seem lack of success given the scale of recent scandals, the reality is that businesses have been busier than ever implementing ethics, compliance, and corporate responsibility programs. Time is needed, however, for the seeds of these relatively young programs to develop into more permanent structures. Thus, despite the avalanche of bad news, it is possible to say that the task of building integrity into business proceeds apace.

While building business integrity structures will take time, there is an immediate, relatively simple, and highly effective internal step that chief executive officers (CEOs), and their boards can take now: Read More.

Corruption and bribery: A business integrity officer’s perspective
Andrea Bonime-Blanc, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel
Ethical Corporation, October 19, 2009

The business rationale for anti-corruption and bribery efforts

While the enforcement of the new anti-corruption laws is uneven, weak or even non-existent in some locations, awareness, whistle blowing, industry efforts, NGO initiatives and greater inter-governmental cooperation have raised the bar for compliance to a heretofore unknown plateau.

The volume on this topic is unlikely to lower and is instead more likely to rise significantly as Read More.

How Victims of Fraud Are Compensated
www.executiveview.com, October 2, 2009
By Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Jeff Locke, Senior Manager

As prosecutors and regulators have brought more fraud cases to light, victims are still grappling with how to receive compensation for their losses. Victim compensation can depend, in large part, on how the government and the courts treat the fraud. The government and the courts have different potential methods to confiscate funds from perpetrators to compensate victims. This article will focus on: Read More

Areas of Risk: Internal Investigations and More
By Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Scott Moritz, Executive Director
www.executiveview.com, October 2, 2009

Companies alleged to be involved in fraud or misconduct will most certainly continue to be obligated to conduct an internal investigation. It has become clear, however, from the investigative concerns at Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telecom and Hewlett-Packard, to name a few, that an investigation can be at least as damaging Read More.

Separating gold from garbage in BSA/AML digging
ABA Banking Journal, October 2009
By Carmina Hughes, Executive Director and Gonzalo Sanchez, Director

The financial services industry generates vast quantities of information pertaining to money laundering, terrorism financing, and fraud. Much data is not subject to adequate intelligence analysis; in other words, there’s “information waste.” That information is produced by the banks Read More

There are currently more than 32,000 projects funded with Recovery Act dollars. The Act requires first-tier recipients of this money — prime contractors and state and local grantees — to compile and report statistics, such as job creation and retention that they have not typically had to report before. Specifically, beginning October 10, 2009, these first-tier Read More.

Bloomberg Law Reports, Risk & Compliance

Andrea Bonime-Blanc, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary

We have all heard about ERM or Enterprise Risk Management especially in the past few years. ERM is the practice of building a company-wide risk management program to identify, manage, mitigate and eliminate a wide diversity of risks – from financial and operational risks to political and compliance risks. Whether they have formally put ERM into place or not, Read More.

Daylight's September 1, 2009 FCPA Update

Ellen Zimiles, CEO, Joseph Spinelli COO and Scott Moritz, Executive Director
Daylight's FCPA Update, Sept. 1, 2009

While an FCPA case against corporate executives is by no means unusual or unique, the theory that the SEC used in this case was. Specifically, unlike previous FCPA cases against corporate executives, the SEC, did not allege that either of the executives had personal knowledge of the bribes or the failure to record the payments to the customs officials accurately Read More.

Securities Docket - August 31, 2009 –In this Sponsor Spotlight, we speak with Scott Moritz of Daylight Forensic & Advisory LLC. Scott is an Executive Director with Daylight Forensic in their New York Office where he leads the FCPA and Investigative Due Diligence practice. Previously, Scott held executive positions in the forensic practices at KPMG, PwC and served as an FBI Special Agent for nearly 10 years. Read More.

More than 20 centuries have passed since the days of Homer. Risk management practices have experienced phenomenal growth. Yet, recent events have shown Read More.

Daylight's July 21, 2009 AML Update

Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight's AML Update, July 21, 2009

On July 15, 2009, FinCEN announced that it is seeking comments on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require non-bank residential mortgage lenders and originators to develop and implement an AML program and comply with Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filing requirements. Read More.

Daylight's July 16, 2009 AML Update

Scott Moritz, Executive Director
Daylight's AML Update, July 16, 2009

Under the Red Flags Rule, FIs and creditors are required to develop, implement and administer ID Theft Programs reasonably designed to mitigate identity theft risks associated with covered accounts. These programs must be approved by a firm’s board of directors or senior management. Read More.

Daylight's June 2009 AML Update

Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight's AML Update, June 2009

On June 5, 2009, FinCEN issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would streamline BSA requirements for mutual funds, identifying them as financial institutions (“FIs”) under the regulatory definition appearing in 31 CFR 103.11(n). Read More.

Daylight's June 2009 AML Alert

Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight's AML Alert, June 2009

On June 4, 2009, FINRA announced enforcement actions against three registered broker-dealers — J.P. Turner & Co., Park Financial Group, Inc. and Legent Clearing, LLC — based on their failures to implement anti-money laundering compliance programs (“AML program”) reasonably designed to Read More.

Daylight's June Regulatory Compliance Update

Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Joseph Spinelli, COO
Daylight's Regulatory Compliance Update, June 2009

In March 2007, the NYAG began an industry-wide investigation into allegations of pay-to-play practices and undisclosed conflicts of interest at public pension funds. The investigation has heated up in recent months with the filing of criminal actions by the NYAG, civil actions by the SEC and implementation of remedial actions and reforms by pension funds in California, New Mexico and Illinois. Read More.

On June 2, 2009, Ellen Zimiles, CEO of Daylight Forensic & Advisory presented on the topic of "Developments Relating to OFAC Compliance and Enforcement" at the Institute of International Bankers (IIB) AML Conference that was held at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC. To download the presentation, click here.

Daylight Forensic & Advisory Names Managing Director for Health Care
Leslie Platt - Veteran of U.S. Government, Private Practice – to Head Practice

New York – June 1, 2009 –Daylight Forensic & Advisory LLC, a leading independent fraud risk management and investigative consulting firm, announced today the appointment of Leslie A. Platt as a Managing Director and Healthcare Practice Leader. Mr. Platt, who has three decades of experience in the public and private sectors, will lead the firm’s growing Healthcare division out of its Washington D.C. office. Daylight Forensic’s healthcare practice includes advising clients on the latest federal, state and international regulations, compliance performance standards, and healthcare litigation support. Read More.

Daylight's June 2009 Regulatory Compliance Update

Ellen Zimiles, CEO and Carmina Hughes, Executive Director
Daylight's Regulatory Compliance Update, June 2009

As has been widely reported, the volatility that has overtaken the securities markets over the past year has caused the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to consider readopting the “uptick” rule governing short selling, or adopting a modified version. Read More.

Can Baseball Be Saved? Only Through Zero Tolerance

Joseph Spinelli, Chief Operating Officer
Huffington Post, May 20, 2009

Based on my three decades investigating white collar crimes -- from a stint as an FBI agent examining corruption in professional boxing, to becoming New York State's first ever inspector general -- I am convinced that a "zero tolerance" policy is the only way to proceed and effect permanent change, whether it's in the dugouts of Major League Baseball or in the offices of Wall Street. Read More.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Due Diligence in Mergers & Acquisitions

Joseph Spinelli, Chief Operating Officer
Ethisphere, May 13, 2009

On July 11, 2008, DOJ addressed whether a company could make certain payments to Chinese journalists who are employees of state - owned agencies as part of reasonable expenses incurred in promoting the company’s products and services. Read More.

Digital Discovery & E-Evidence

By Carmen Oveissi Field, Managing Director
BNA, March 1, 2009

The skyrocketing cost of e-discovery services has been answered by a comparable escalation in the number of companies eager to reap benefits. Consulting firms, processing houses, and software vendors have sprouted up all over the country. Read More.

Governor Must Work to Change Ethical Culture in Illinois

By Joe Spinelli, Chief Operating Officer
Chicago Sun Times, March 28, 2009

In December; Gov. Rod. R. Blagojevich was arrested for political corruption. In January, the Illinois House impeached him, and the Senate then removed him from office. Sangamon County State's Attorney John Schmidt is exploring the possibility of indicting U.S. Sen. Roland Burris (Blagojevich's selection) for perjury. Read More.

Internal Fraud Investigations - Critical Resources

By Joseph Spinelli, Chief Operating Officer
White Collar Crime Fighter, March, 2009

According to key audit standards, it is management’s responsibility to determine if suspicious financial activity warrants initiation of a fraud investigation.Read More.

Governance, Risk, Ethics and Compliance: Time for a Seat at the Executive Table

By Andrea Bonime-Blanc
Ethics Resource Center: Ethics Today, February 18, 2009

The meltdown of the global financial markets over the past weeks and months and the implosion of the largely unregulated risk-taking of the past few years, point to the urgent need for a fundamentally new way of doing business: one that places an effective internal governor on business in a way that simultaneously helps profitability and lessens liability. Read More.

The FCPA Blog, Risk-Based Compliance - Comment- Aon's New Path

The FCPA Blog, January  13, 2009

A couple of months ago, guest-blogger Scott Moritz talked about risk-based compliance. His post, we now see, was prophetic. Why? Because just last week, when Aon settled an enforcement action with the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority, the real star of the show was . . . risk-based compliance. Read More.

Using Technology To Develop a Risk-Based Approach to FCPA Compliance

By Joseph Spinelli, Scott Moritz and Jay Perlman
Ethisphere Magazine, January 12, 2009

Of particular concern to the DOJ and the SEC is whether companies are properly ‘vetting’ their third-party business partners to ensure that those individuals and entities are not violating the FCPA in their activities on the company’s behalf and thereby subjecting their business partners to liability. Read More.

Regulatory Compliance Update

Ellen Zimiles and Carmina Hughes
Regulatory Compliance Update, January 2009

As part of Daylight’s continuing efforts to keep SEC-registered firms informed of developments relating to regulatory compliance, the following sets forth a summary of recent activity by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Read More.