Features

‘Confidential Witnesses’ Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
'Confidential witnesses' can offer plaintiffs a strategic advantage in the early stages of a securities fraud case. Courts must accept well-pleaded allegations at the motion to dismiss stage, even if they are anonymous. A critical task for any court reviewing a complaint with confidential witness allegations is to scrutinize the reliability of these claims.
Features

UK’s ‘Failure to Prevent Fraud’ Offence Takes Effect
On Sept. 1, 2025, the UK’s new ‘Failure to Prevent Fraud’, introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), takes effect, representing a decisive shift in corporate criminal liability. For legal and compliance teams, the challenge is moving from reactive response to proactive prevention, backed by demonstrable procedures.
Features

Second Circuit Panels Diverge on Applying Supreme Court’s Narrowing of Fraud Statutes
Two recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decisions illustrate lower courts’ differing approaches to the U.S. Supreme Court’s running rebuke of overly expansive interpretations of the mail and wire fraud statutes.
Features

FTC’s ‘Click-to-Cancel’ Rule Blocked But Experts Say to Comply Anyway
Subscription businesses may have breathed a sigh of relief when a federal appeals court blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s “click-to-cancel” rule in July, but legal experts say they should scale back their compliance efforts only modestly, or perhaps not at all.
Features

SEC’s Cybersecurity Unit to Focus on ‘AI Washing’
The SEC recently created the Cybersecurity & Emerging Technologies Unit, which is responsible for rooting out fraud schemes related to AI, including fake social media sites, and blockchain and crypto fraud. As a result, SEC whistleblowers will have an opportunity to play a key role in providing the SEC original information leading to investigations and prosecutions of AI cases, commonly known as “AI washing.”
Features

When Sanctions Fail: The Ovsiannikov Case and Why Enhanced Due Diligence Must Become a Compliance Standard
As geopolitical tensions escalate and global sanctions regimes become more aggressive, the Ovsiannikov case serves as a stark warning: checkbox compliance is no longer sufficient. EDD must become the operational standard — not just in banking, but across every sector involved in high-risk transactions.
Features

Navigating DOJ’s New White-Collar Playbook
Key Risks for Government Contractors, Tech Companies and Healthcare EntitiesThe DOJ recently unveiled a series of policy updates that shifted the white-collar enforcement landscape. These updates — an emphasis on the False Claims Act, a shift away from the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and increased incentives for self-disclosure and whistleblowers — are poised to reshape how companies approach compliance.
Features

Sentencing Stats Show That the Trial Penalty Is Substantially Overstated In the Vast Majority of White Collar Cases
The focus of this article is on the spectrum of white collar cases in which the lawyer believes there is a credible chance of winning based not only on an assessment of weaknesses in the government’s case but also of other factors such as loss of the opportunity to favorably litigate outcome-determinative evidentiary issues. Too often in these situations defense lawyers recommend a guilty plea in the mistaken belief that conviction at trial will result in a significant trial penalty far greater than a plea bargain sentence. By reviewing empirical sentencing data we hope to dispel this widely held, but ultimately mistaken view.
Features

New Whistleblower Rewards Program Includes Monetary Incentive
On July 8, 2025, the DOJ, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the USPS Office of Inspector General entered into a memorandum of understanding creating a whistleblower rewards program “to enable whistleblowers to report specific, credible and timely information about possible federal criminal violations.” The first of its kind, it creates a monetary incentive for whistleblowers to report criminal antitrust violations involving such conduct as price fixing, bid rigging, market allocation and even certain types of predatory conduct by monopolists.
Features

Foreign Sovereign Immunity May Be Obstacle to DOJ Enforcement Efforts
In May, Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, issued a department-wide memorandum setting forth the department’s enforcement priorities in the white-collar crime sphere. In it, the department announced an effort to combat crime that “poses a significant threat to U.S. interests,” including the “enabling of shadow-banking and sanctions evasions by hostile nation-states and terror regimes.” A potential obstacle to these enforcement efforts is the doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity. This doctrine, as its name suggests, has been used by courts to grant judicial immunity to foreign states, their instrumentalities, and their respective heads of state.
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