This blog was originally published in Law360.
On November 18, 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila sentenced Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes to over 11 years in
Continue Reading When Organizational Culture Goes Wrong: A Federal Judge’s Vivid Description of Cultural Decay Inside Theranos
There is a compliance obligation that is sometimes honored in the breach: regular compliance self‐assessments. In this edition of OIG Shorts, the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Organizational Integrity
Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Compliance Self-Assessments
The U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) thinks the FBI and other agencies are not doing enough to address the espionage threat on U.S. university campuses. It issued a report, “Enforcement Agencies Should Better Leverage Information to Target Efforts Involving U.S. Universities” on June 14, 2022, urging the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Commerce to step up their outreach efforts to address the threat. Commerce, DHS, and FBI have all concurred with GAO’s recommendations. As a result, U.S. colleges and universities to face yet another organizational risk: an increase in campuses visits by export control and law enforcement agents.Continue Reading U.S. Government Pursues More Aggressive Action to Curb Espionage at Universities
If your company is like many, your board of directors may be demanding that you put more effort into environmental, social, and governance issues, which have become known by the now-ubiquitous acronym “ESG.” Those demands don’t come from nowhere: consumers are demanding transparency and social responsibility. In addition, if your company does business internationally, regulators are now focused on international social justice issues (such as the use of forced labor) more than ever.
Continue Reading Does Your Trade Policy Support Your Company’s Values?
Corporate compliance programs are expected to be tailored to an organization’s unique risks. Most regulators (and most modern organizational compliance programs) prescribe risk-based compliance. But one thing is to prescribe; another is to execute properly.
Continue Reading Five Keys to a Successful Compliance Risk Assessment
Contrary to some expectations, the Trump Administration Department of Justice imposed record penalties under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act from 2017 through 2020. But in each of those years, fewer and fewer new FCPA investigations were initiated. We expect the Biden Administration to continue the trend of increasing FCPA enforcement settlement values, while also increasing the pace of initiating new FCPA investigations. Anticorruption matters present some of the most severe threats to a company’s organizational integrity. Understanding the changing enforcement culture is an important component to addressing those threats.
Continue Reading The Next Four Years of FCPA Enforcement: What to Expect From the Biden Administration
This spring, two major sports teams were caught cheating. Both are consistent championship contenders in recent years.
In the United States, hardly any sports fan could have missed the report released by Major League Baseball concluding that the Houston Astros used cameras to steal signs from opposing pitchers, allowing Astros hitters to know what pitches were coming. The Astros exploited this scheme to win the World Series in 2017, reach the American League Championship in 2018, and reach the World Series again in 2019.[1]Continue Reading Foul Balls and Red Cards: How Baseball and Soccer’s Different Approaches to Cheating Illustrate the Power of Organizational Response
In December 2019, an entire class of West Virginia prison guard trainees was reportedly fired for giving the Nazi salute in their graduation photo.
The incident is not only a chilling display of a detestable symbol of genocide. It is also a crystal-clear example of the problem of the passive bystander. But modern training methods, based on current research on the science of bystandership, can help prevent such abuses before they occur. Such programs are being successfully adopted by law enforcement agencies and other organizations around the country.
Continue Reading How an Entire Class of Prison Guard Trainees Could Have Been Saved by a Simple Bystander Intervention Program