What is stranger than fiction? The stories of worldwide corruption. In this podcast series, co-hosts Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance and Mike DeBernardis, partner at Hughes Hubbard will detail some of the most audacious corruption cases from the modern era of anti-corruption enforcement. More importantly, they will discuss the lessons learned on what your organization can do to prevent running afoul of international anti-bribery laws.
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What is stranger than fiction? The stories of worldwide corruption. In this podcast series, co-hosts Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance and Mike DeBernardis, partner at Hughes Hubbard will detail some of the most audacious corruption cases from the modern era of anti-corruption enforcement. More importantly, they will discuss the lessons learned on what your organization can do to prevent running afoul of international anti-bribery laws.
Thomas Fox and Michael DeBernardis discuss the dubious bribery cases of financial institutions, specifically Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Societe Generale (SocGen), that utilized commission agents of significant political power. They also talk about why compliance committees should look closer into the backgrounds of company agents and how the Deutsche Bank kickstarted France’s fight against corruption.
▶️ Banks Behaving Badly with Thomas Fox and Michael DeBernardis
Key points discussed in the episode:
(00:00:36) Michael DeBernardis gives a brief background on the Deutsche Bank case.
(00:05:10) Thomas Fox examines the compliance lessons to be learned from the Deutsche Bank case. Compliance professionals should consider not only families but friends of commission agents. The worst misconduct can gain reduced penalties when companies cooperate with investigations. Michael adds how Deutsche Bank took corrective action to achieve a significant discount.
(00:11:09) Two possible discounts companies may get for compliance are (1) a cooperation discount under the US sentencing guidelines and (2) a discount under the FCPA corporate enforcement policy.
(00:12:15) Michael DeBernardis’ standpoint as a lawyer to his clients: be forthcoming, and argumentative when appropriate.
(00:13:54) Michael DeBernardis gives a brief background on the SocGen case.
(00:19:28) The SocGen case was the first US-France anti-corruption collaboration. Though bribery through agents has been done by others, it’s still an effective dishonest practice. Michael adds that companies have since improved in doing background checks of their agents.
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The Corruption Files
What is stranger than fiction? The stories of worldwide corruption. In this podcast series, co-hosts Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance and Mike DeBernardis, partner at Hughes Hubbard will detail some of the most audacious corruption cases from the modern era of anti-corruption enforcement. More importantly, they will discuss the lessons learned on what your organization can do to prevent running afoul of international anti-bribery laws.
