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Fighting the Seizure of Attorney-Client Communications
The government's seizure of attorney-client communications, a headline event when it involves the President's lawyer Michael Cohen, actually is a recurrent problem in white collar criminal investigations due to the convergence of several trends.
Felony Tax Obstruction Statute Only Applies to Ongoing or Foreseeable Proceedings, Not to Routine Non-Compliance with Tax Code Requirements, SCOTUS Clarifies
On March 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court in Marinello v. United States imposed a significant limitation on the government's ability to charge and successfully convict taxpayers for obstructing administration of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 7212(a) of the IRC makes it a felony to “corruptly or by force†“endeavor[] to obstruct or impede[] the due administration of this title.†In a 7-2 decision, the Court announced a narrow interpretation of “due administration of [the IRC],†holding that due administration referred only to a particular proceeding and not general IRS administration.
Latvian Bank Faces Exclusion as a "Primary Money Laundering Concern" Based on North Korean Ties and Other Misdeeds
On February 12, 2018, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN"), a division of the Treasury Department charged with enforcing the anti-money laundering provisions Bank Secrecy Act ("BSA"), branded ABLV Bank, AS as a "financial institution of primary money laundering concern" and announced its intention, via a notice of proposed rulemaking, to effectively exclude ABLV Bank from the U.S. financial system by prohibiting U.S. banks from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts in ABLV Bank's name or on its behalf.
The New Tax Bill: Settlement Considerations Regarding Tax Treatment of Fines, Penalties, and Restitution
Corporations and counsel negotiating settlement agreements with the United States under the False Claims Act, or other statutes that provide for monetary damages and penalties, must be aware of the impact of the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on the ability to take business tax deductions for these amounts. The Act made changes to tax treatment that are effective for agreements and orders that are finalized on or after December 22, 2017.
Third Circuit Rejects FCA Claims of Medicare Part D Fraud Applying Post-Escobar Materiality Bar; Acknowledges Validity of Government Knowledge Inference Defense
Earlier this month the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ended a long-fought False Claims Act case of alleged Medicare Part D fraud, holding that a pharmacy benefit manager's limited non-compliance with pharmacy claims processing requirements was not material to Medicare's payment decisions within the meaning of the Supreme Court's Escobar decision. On November 16, 2017, in United States ex rel. Spay v. CVS Caremark Corporation, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court's summary judgment dismissal in its second significant post-Escobar materiality decision. Interestingly, the appellate court veered away from the district court's holding that the "government knowledge inference" defense precluded liability for the PBM and instead found that the Relator failed to demonstrate that the alleged non-compliance met the Escobar materiality threshold.
Mr. Mueller's Options, Short of Indictment
Suppose Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team develops evidence that nonetheless is material to matters of national security or to non-criminal malfeasance? Obviously, this would be of great interest to the public and to Congressional committees investigating parallel and related matters. What are his options? I discuss this in my November 27, 2017 article for Law360, "Mueller's Options, Short Of Indictment."
Thoughts on the Manafort & Gates Indictment: Focused on FBAR Violations
On Monday, October 30, 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller unsealed the indictment against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business associate, Richard Gates. The majority of the indictment - 7 out of 12 counts - relates to the pair's alleged failure to file FBARs, which is a violation of Title 31, not Title 26, of the U.S. Code.
Shale Insight 2017: AG Panel Reflects Contrast in Enforcement Approaches; Criminal Exposures from Civil Litigation
On September 27, 2017, I participated on the panel, "Managing Attorney General Investigations: Increased State Environmental Enforcement and How You Can Survive," at the Shale Insight 2017 conference in Pittsburgh, PA. The panel included Molly Corey, Assistant Attorney General from the Ohio AG Office and Jeff Landry, the Attorney General for the State of Louisiana. My partner Terry Bossert, who chairs our firm's Shale Resource group, moderated.
Almost Anyone Can Be a Felon: the Troubling Scope of Tax Obstruction, Part II
Part I of this Post discussed the background and holdings of United States v. Marinello. This post focuses on the implications of the Second Circuit's construction of the omnibus clause of section 7212(a) of the Internal Revenue Code and on the potential ways in which the Supreme Court might narrow that construction.
Navigating DOJ's New Compliance Program Parameters
The DOJ Criminal Fraud Section's much heralded in-house compliance expert, Hui Chen, quit last month due, she said, to "cognitive dissonance" brought on by the present Administration's conduct at the top. But Ms. Chen leaves in her wake a very significant, detailed memorandum discussing the factors which the government intends to apply going forward in evaluating corporate compliance programs.Â
Navigating the Cloud's Data Security and Legal Hazards
The Legal Intelligencer recently published my article, “Cloud Control: Data Security Hazards and How to Avoid Them,†in their 2017 Cybersecurity Supplement. The article looks at what businesses need to be thinking about in terms of cybersecurity and compliance issues associated with cloud computing - a model that has largely been embraced by the business world as the rule rather than the exception.
New York Proposed Cybersecurity Regulations: A Predictor of Things to Come for the Finance and Insurance Industries
The proposed regulations would be the most prescriptive data security requirements yet to be imposed. They would require all covered financial institutions and insurers to establish and maintain cybersecurity programs and policies addressing a list of minimum requirements, "to the extent applicable to the Covered Entity's operations."