Category Archives: Compliance

DOJ Announces Civil Rights Fraud Initiative: Department Will Seek To Use The False Claims Act To Enforce Civil Rights Laws Against Universities And Government Contractors

by Debo P. Adegbile, Christopher Babbitt, Brian Boynton, Lisa Brown, Kevin Lamb, and Brenda E. Lee

Photos of authors

Top left to right: Debo P. Adegibile, Christopher Babbitt, Brian Boynton, Lisa Brown, Kevin Lamb, Brenda E. Lee (photos courtesy of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP)

On May 19, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a new Civil Rights Fraud Initiative within the Department of Justice to “utilize the False Claims Act to investigate and, as appropriate, pursue claims against any recipient of federal funds that knowingly violates federal civil rights laws.” 

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Retheorizing Compliance: Moving from Defense to Offense in Uncertain Times

by Todd Haugh and Suneal Bedi

Left to right: Todd Haugh and Suneal Bedi (photos courtesy of the authors)

The Trump administration—Trump 2.0, as some are calling it—is moving at unprecedented speeds to remake how government regulates business. In the administration’s first 100 days alone budgets and personnel have been downsized at the IRS, EPA, CFPB, and FTC, among other agencies. Enforcement of the FCPA has been paused, more than a dozen inspector generals have been removed from their posts, and the newly confirmed Attorney General and FBI Director are expected to work in tandem to drastically refocus civil and criminal enforcement.   

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European Union, United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority Impose More Than €549 Million in Fines on Major Car Manufacturers for 15-Year Cartel Involving Vehicle Recycling

by Jonathan J. Rusch

photo of author

Photo courtesy of the author

On April 1, the European Commission (EC) and the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) simultaneously announced that they had imposed fines collectively totaling more than €549 million against a total of 17 leading car manufacturers and two trade groups, the European Automobiles Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) and the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), for conducting a more than 15-year cartel pertaining to “end-of-life” vehicle recycling.[1]

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The Rise of Audits as a Regulatory Tool for Tech

by Janet Kim, Matthew Bruce, Lutz Riede, Tristan Lockwood, Fiona McHugh, Florentine Schulte-Rudzio, and Bhavya Sharma

Photos of the authors

Top left to right: Janet Kim, Matthew Bruce, Lutz Riede, and Tristan Lockwood. Bottom left to right: Fiona McHugh, Florentine Schulte-Rudzio, and Bhavya Sharma (photos courtesy of Freshfields LLP)

As technology evolves, so do challenges in effectively regulating it. In an era where there is increasing focus on effective oversight of digital platforms, legislators are turning to audits as a go-to tool. This blog explores the reasons behind the growing adoption of audits in digital regulation, focusing on key legislative frameworks such as the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA), and also explores the scope of audits in AI and other digital regulation. It also includes some practical tips for businesses navigating these new audit regimes.

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CPPA Fines Honda $632,500 for CCPA Violations

by Jenna N. Rode

Photo courtesy of the author

On March 12, 2025, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) announced that it reached a settlement with American Honda Motor Co. (“Honda”) in which Honda will pay a $632,500 fine to resolve claims that the company violated the CCPA. The enforcement action comes as part of the CPPA’s ongoing investigation into connected vehicle manufacturers, which began in 2023.

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UK, French, and Swiss Enforcement Authorities Announce New Alliance

by Lloyd Firth, Dr. Jan-S. Wendler, Claire M. Guehenno, Kimberly A. Parker, Jay Holtmeier, Erin G.H. Sloane, Christopher Cestaro, and Lindsey Cullen

Top left to right: Lloyd Firth, Dr. Jan-S. Wendler, Claire M. Guehenno and Kimberly A. Parker. Bottom left to right: Jay Holtmeier, Erin G.H. Sloane, Christopher Cestaro and Lindsey Cullen (Photos courtesy of WilmerHale).

Summary

Anti-bribery and corruption agencies in the UK, France and Switzerland recently announced a shared commitment to tackling international bribery and corruption, by way of a new taskforce intended to strengthen collaboration.

This taskforce was announced by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), France’s Parquet National Financier (PNF) and the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) at a meeting in London. Its founding statement notes “the significant threat of bribery and corruption” and states that its members recognise that “success relies on us working closely and effectively together”. It intends to deliver a working group for case cooperation and increased best practice sharing.

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Recalibrating Compliance Programs Under Trump 2.0

by Adam Siegel, Eric Bruce, Daniel Cendan, and Emmeline Chen

Photos of the authors

Left to right: Adam Siegel, Eric Bruce, Daniel Cendan, and Emmeline Chen (photos courtesy of authors)

Nearly two months into his second presidential term, President Trump and his Administration have engaged in a flurry of activity, issuing over 80 executive orders (EOs), 20 memoranda, and a dozen proclamations, as well as making personnel adjustments and redeploying various federal resources.  Together with his Cabinet members, President Trump has sought to swiftly roll out policy initiatives, many of which reflect a significant change in course from the United States’ prior approaches and create uncertainty and new risks across multiple sectors.  

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Personal and Ephemeral Messaging Platforms: A Priority Target for Enforcement and Regulators.

by David Craig, Michael Koenig, and Mark Rosman

Photos of the authors

Left to right: David Craig, Michael Koenig, and Mark Rosman (photos courtesy of Secretariat and Proskauer Rose)

In the not-too-distant past, professionals used email as their primary, if not their only, means of electronic communication. Texting was a futuristic novelty but also clumsy endeavor requiring between one and four button pushes on a small keypad to produce a single letter on an even smaller screen. It goes without saying, text messaging was ill-suited for rapid and substantive business communications. While a company’s employees occasionally sent work-related text messages for scheduling purposes, clear dividing lines generally existed between personal and professional communication. This made litigation holds and discovery relatively straight forward: discoverable business-related communications were in one bucket and non-discoverable personal communications were in another.

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When Does Caremark Have Teeth?

by Jennifer Arlen

Photo of the author

Photo courtesy of the author

Directors’ liability for corporate trauma stemming from their failure to carry out their duties to oversee and terminate corporate misconduct is a vital tool in the effort to deter corporate crime. Delaware’s Caremark doctrine imposes such duties and liability on directors but this liability is only effective when two conditions are met: First, the corporate trauma must result from a legal violation, as opposed to a business risk.  Second, the legal violation must constitute a “mission critical legal risk” (MCLR), as only then are directors subject to sufficiently specific and binding oversight duties to induce them to exert greater oversight over both compliance and suspected MCLR misconduct.[1]

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Reflections from the 2025 ABA White Collar Crime Conference: Evaluating the Implications of the New Administration’s Enforcement Priorities

by Robertson Park

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Photo courtesy of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

The 2025 ABA White Collar Crime Conference in Miami drew a large audience of more than 1,300 lawyers and another several hundred attending the evening’s events — and yet there was not a single DOJ representative. This reflects the amorphous and challenged state of DOJ leadership. I have not enough fingers to count the close generational friends and senior DOJ leaders who have been terminated, transferred, or forced out.  Natural questions about who is leading and where, and how they propose to get there were unanswered. The White-Collar Bar have become advocates for those who have been our foils. The “Regulators Speak” presentation reflected the fraught state of affairs. The new CFTC Director of Enforcement and the Acting SEC Associate Director of Enforcement spoke and certainly professed that while certain priorities may shift the fundamental effort to protect market integrity would continue, though the SEC representative confirmed that they will be abiding by the FCPA stand-down. This presentation was met by an individual audience member who took the microphone to cast a broadside against the new Administration.  

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