Financial Crimes Compliance

Eric Lewis appeared on Corporate Counsel Business Journal's daily podcast, In House Warrior, to discuss extradition, OFAC sanctions, and what to expect from the Biden administration.

LBKM partner Cristián Francos has been appointed as Senior Vice Chair of the IBA’s Business Crime Committee.

Cristián Francos been recognized as a Global Leader in Who’s Who Legal: Investigations 2021.  Who’s Who Legal is one of the world’s leading directories of legal practitioners.

In 2020 and beyond, foreign banks should expect the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, to expand its use of so-called special measures.

Arthur Middlemiss spoke to Corporate Counsel regarding the September 27, 2019 consent order entered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission detailing corruption offenses by Barclays PLC. 

Colleges and universities must recognize the risk of potential corruption in their admissions process, and build intelligent controls to guard against fraud. Lewis Baach’s Arthur D. Middlemiss explains that schools should employ cost-efficient compliance measures and warns of the dangers in failing to do so.

“This action should be a wake-up call to advisory firms who deliberately make false material assertions on a Form ADV,” said Lewis Baach partner Jason Berland. “This is particularly true when a firm blatantly fails to designate an appropriate individual to be responsible for administering compliance programs. In a situation, such as the one here, where one of the chief compliance officer designees was allegedly unaware he was designated, civil money penalties should be a real concern.”

Non-US insurers with exposures to Iran-related business face a difficult six months to bring their business into compliance with US president Donald Trump’s newly reinstated snap-back sanctions

A government coverup of the Cohen reports “makes no sense,” said Aaron Wolfson, a lawyer who previously oversaw suspicious activity reporting for JPMorgan Chase. “I find that laughable.”

Mr. Francos was quoted in the article saying, “If someone received a bribe, then someone had to have paid the bribe,” he said. “Companies should be well prepared [to be investigated].”  He continued to say, many Argentinian companies that are contracted by the state do not have established policies in terms of compliance and integrity, and will likely rush to put together new compliance programmes. Francos said “this shock could be good” to improve standards quickly.  “This [scenario] creates a problem for companies, but also an opportunity that will bring change to Argentina’s business culture,” he said.

It would not be out of the ordinary, then, for a VEB official to have brief courtesy meetings with New York bankers about continuing business, though they would not be allowed to discuss new bond deals, said Aaron Wolfson, a partner at Lewis Baach who previously worked at JPMorgan and prosecuted banks for skirting sanctions.

On Monday, Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clarifying subsection 1 of the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §1344, in Shaw v. United States. Notwithstanding a veritable ocean of case law, regulations and statutes that delineate the difference between a bank’s property and that of its customers, the court quickly pushed such technical arguments to the side, holding that — for the purposes of the bank fraud statute — there is no practical difference between targeting a bank customer’s funds and targeting the bank’s own funds.

“The court’s decision is in keeping with the long-standing principle that a fraud can be prosecuted under the criminal law even if the victim does not suffer a loss — which is an important distinction between criminal fraud and civil fraud,” said A. Katherine Toomey, a partner at Lewis Baach PLLC.

Next week, for the second time in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a case for the purpose of resolving a split in the circuits concerning the scope of the bank fraud statute — 18 U.S.C. §1344. 

In this exclusive Of Counsel piece, Julie Copeland and Mirella deRose, take a look at the “ABCs” of compliance.

A U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia imposed a below-Guidelines sentence for a Syrian-born U.S.citizen who pleaded guilty to providing equipment to forces opposing the Syrian regime in violation of U.S. sanctions laws.

Mr. Francos is a contributing author.

Banks serving clients in the many countries the U.S. views as high risk for money laundering should be aware that the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, plans to expand its use of “special measures” to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. 

Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss partner Cristián Francos spoke at ACI's Anti-Corruption Compliance for High Risk Markets conference on July 24, 2019 in Washington, D.C.

Cristián Francos served as Organising Committee Head for the 22nd Transnational Crime Conference in Buenos Aires. 

Eric Lewis focuses on three key areas: (1) the widening of the net from sanctioned individuals to their families; (2) the application of the evasion provisions to foreign persons; (3) the bringing of new classes within existing sanctions.