Corporate nondisclosure agreements, long used to protect proprietary information are the target of SEC scrutiny in order to assure that they aren't used to deter potential whistleblowers from filing claims revealing corporate violations of law. The SEC has recently taken actions against companies that...

Cyprus, long used has a place for Russian Oligarchs and leaders to hide billions of dollars, is now seeing an intense investigation and exposure of complicity of several Cypriot financial services firms aiding oligarchs in hiding their moneys in Cyprus banks. Cypriot investigators held a meeting this week without the U.S....

Swiss private bank Banque Pictet et Cie SA admitted to conspiring with U.S. taxpayers and others to hide more than $5.6 billion in 1,637 secret bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere and to conceal the income generated in those accounts from the IRS. As...

Federal prosecutors have charged Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, of Miami, Florida, a former U.S. Department of State employee who served on the National Security Council and as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia from , with committing multiple federal crimes by secretly acting for decades as an agent of the...

The United states Treasury is asking Congressional lawmakers to grants it powers to pursue cyrpto companies overseas that are helping illicit financing of terrorists. One request incudes special jurisdiction over non-U.S. Stablecoin users. The new set of powers that would give the Treasury enforcement and sanctions...

German company, KingKong-Tools GmbH & Co KG, and its American subsidiary, King Kong Tools, LLC (collectively “King Kong”), will pay $1.9 million to settle allegations of customs fraud under the False Claims Act. The government alleged that King Kong was falsely labelling its tools as “made in Germany” when, in fact,...

Ex Nuveen Trader LAWRENCE BILLIMEK has pleaded guilty in connection with his participation in a $47 million FRONT RUNNING insider trading scheme.  BILLIMEK was arrested in December 2022 and pled guilty to securities fraud based on insider trading before U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe. BILLIMEK and a co-conspirator engaged in these front-running...

FINANCE REGULATION The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Bank of America Securities $24 million for more than 700 instances of spoofing through two former traders. Spoofing is trading in which the asserted trades...

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) administers the rules on when and how companies and individuals do business with sanctioned entities and controls.  Violations of sanctions can lead to serious criminal and civil penalties, with OFAC working closely with other government agencies including...

Yesterday, I wrote about the $1 billion dollar fine against Binance for doing business with users in Cuba, Russia, Syria and Iran for apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs. That is not the only such action taken and there are other pending investigations. In September, The U.S. Securities...