Bribe, Swindle or Steal

Randall Eliason, law professor and former Assistant US Attorney, provides an excellent account of the days leading up to the recent sentencing of political operative Roger Stone. The Department of Justice’s unprecedented interference in--and reversal of--its prosecutorial team’s recommendation led to the resignation from the case of all four prosecutors. Over 2000 former DOJ officials have called on Attorney General Barr to resign in the wake of his interference in the case.

Aisling O’Shea of Sullivan & Cromwell describes the Airbus settlement that resulted in penalties totaling almost $4 billion and involved resolutions with U.S., UK and French authorities.

Investigative reporter Scilla Alecci of the ICIJ describes the excellent work that team did, using more than 715,000 leaked documents, to untangle the vast and often opaque business empire of Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and daughter of the former president of Angola.

Dr. Frank Badua, Associate Professor of Accounting and Business Law at Lamar University College of Business, describes the misconduct from the 1950s through the 1970s by a group of companies that led to widespread support for passage of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jeff Clark, a partner with Willkie Farr & Gallagher and well-known to TRACE members, provides an excellent summary of US foreign anti-bribery activity in 2019.

Emmanuel Farhat of the AFA discusses Sapin II and his organization’s role in vetting the implementation of the corporate compliance programs that the law mandates.

C4ADS Senior Analysts Stella Cooper and Cecile Neumeister discuss their fantastic report on the little known problem of illegal logging in South Sudan and the environmental, social, financial and security implications. Read the report here.

With the compliance professionals showing increased interest in behavioral ethics and asking not just how employees and others engage in misconduct, but also why, we’re re-posting this podcast with Shaul Shalvi on his research into what motivates criminals.

This podcast has become a bit of a holiday tradition on the podcast. Peter Hellman describes Rudy Kurniawan’s audacious scheme to defraud wine collectors in his excellent book, “In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire.”

Bill Steinman, senior partner at boutique compliance firm Steinman & Rodgers, walks us through some continuing trends—and a few surprises--from 2019.