Corporate Finance

December 11, 2019

Given the high profile nature of Boeing’s ongoing saga with the grounding of its 737 MAX aircraft, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) Staff was particularly focused on the company’s disclosure of this issue in its recent review of Boeing’s SEC filings. In monitoring SEC comment letters, we came across this SEC comment letter exchange with Boeing made public this week where the Staff questions the company about…

Money Laundering Watch

IRS CI Highlights International Efforts to Tackle Cryptocurrency Abuse, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion

By Peter D. Hardy, Alicia M. Went & Shauna Pierson

December 9, 2019

ABA Tax Fraud Panel to Discuss IRS CI and Crypto Criminals The Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation (IRS CI) has made it clear that it is focusing on the abuse of digital currencies to further tax evasion, money laundering, and other offenses. IRS-CI also has made it clear that this is an international effort, and that it is trying to partner with law enforcement agencies across the globe in order to coordinate and share…

Iowa Banking Law Blog

You Can’t Outsource Cybersecurity to Your Bank

By jlande@dickinsonlaw.com Dickinson Mackaman Tyler Hagen P.C.

December 9, 2019

This blog has covered numerous cases of fraudsters tricking organizations into transferring funds. The scams often involve fraudsters portraying themselves as a senior executive in an organization either by hacking or spoofing the executive’s email. Prima Donna Development v. Wells Fargo is a case like so many others previously covered by this blog. Prima Donna develops, builds, and manages hotel properties throughout the west coast. The company opened several bank accounts at Wells Fargo for…

Securities Law Exchange

Key Takeaways from Our Public Company SEC Reporting Webinar

By Jay Knight & Michael Rivera

December 6, 2019

The Bass, Berry & Sims Corporate & Securities Practice Group recently hosted another in a series of complimentary webinars exploring various public company-related securities law issues. The most recent Securities Law Exchange webinar, Recent SEC Reporting Developments and Enforcement Insights, was held on November 19 and discussed recent developments from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), including best practices and lessons learned from recent changes under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act and the…

Money Laundering Watch

U.S. Treasury and DOJ Target “Evil Corp”

By Peter D. Hardy

December 6, 2019

treasury-department-sign-in-washington-dc-facade-picture-id519393814

Organization Excels at Niche Branding but Stumbles in Avoiding Enforcement The first paragraph of the press release sums it up: Today the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against Evil Corp, the Russia-based cybercriminal organization responsible for the development and distribution of the Dridex malware. Evil Corp has used the Dridex malware to infect computers and harvest login credentials from hundreds of banks and financial institutions in over 40 countries,…

Covington Competition

Advanced Competition Law Conference Brussels – Joint Presentation on Recent EU Cartel Enforcement

By Laura Corbett & Johan Ysewyn

December 6, 2019

On 27 November, Johan Ysewyn and Annemarie ter Heegde (DG COMP) presented the highlights of recent EU cartel enforcement in their annual presentation at the Advanced EU Competition Law Conference in Brussels. They covered the developments in the traditional three pillars of enforcement, policy and court review.…

The Securities Edge

“Loosey-Goosey Governance” (or, why I STILL hate “best practices”)

By Robert B. Lamm

December 5, 2019

goose-178143_1920 — Image by Holger Schué from Pixabay

About a year ago, I was speaking with the governance committee of a prospective client. One of the committee members asked me what the “best practice” was in a particular area. I said that I hate the term “best practice,” because one size never fits all, there is almost always a range of perfectly fine practices, and that a company needs to think about how a particular practice would work (or not) given its industry,…

Money Laundering Watch

Banking Regulators Ease SAR Reporting Requirements Applied to Hemp-Related Businesses

By Terence M. Grugan & Beth Moskow-Schnoll

December 5, 2019

On December 3, 2019, four federal agencies – the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) – along with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, released a statement (the “Statement”) “to provide clarity regarding the legal status of commercial growth and production of hemp and relevant requirements for banks under…

The Securities Edge

Onward and upward, Broc!

By Robert B. Lamm

December 3, 2019

I don’t look at my RSS feed or my Twitter account until I’m finished with my day’s work, so it wasn’t until last night that I read Broc Romanek’s blog post announcing his retirement from thecorporatecounsel.net. He’s already received a number of gracious and, I am sure, sincere paeans, including from my friend and mentee (or so he says) Doug Chia, and I won’t attempt to expand upon them. Moreover, Broc is far too…

Iowa Banking Law Blog

FinCEN Changes SAR Guidance in Wake of USDA Rules Update

By The Newsroom

December 3, 2019

On December 3, 2019 the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) updated previous guidance regarding Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). Previously banks handling transactions for hemp growers were required to file SARs on all transactions from growers of hemp. Now, in the wake of hemp’s removal from the list of Schedule I drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act and USDA rules regulating the growing of hemp SARs will no longer need to be filed on hemp…