Bribe, Swindle Or Steal

This week’s podcast features an excellent presentation by Misti Mukherjee, founder and managing member of Extensio Law.  Misti addresses the shifting field of diversity, equity and inclusion—including recent changes to the law—and emphasizes the critical importance of this work alongside the need to approach it with intentionality and discipline.

This week’s podcast is a bit off the beaten track.  We speak with Sherub Tharchen in Paro in Bhutan about his country.  We cover some of the basics, including the country’s location between two neighbors with high levels of corruption, and then discuss how the current King of Bhutan tackled corruption in a way that, while probably not replicable in most countries, has nevertheless had great success for the Bhutanese.

Leah Ambler, then Director of Corruption Prevention at the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and previously Legal Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), delves—in her personal capacity—into her excellent chapter on whistleblower protections, emphasizes their importance in reducing corruption and highlights the challenges posed by the lack of comprehensive, harmonized legislation.  Originally posted on Jan. 12, 2022

This week on Bribe, Swindle, or Steal, we listen in on the lively presentation at the 2024 TRACE Forum featuring former enforcement officials, Charles Duross, Partner, Morrison Foerster, David Last, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb, and Mark Mendelsohn, Partner, Paul Weiss. Speaking with TRACE President, Alexandra Wrage, Chuck, David, and Mark discuss their time as Chiefs of the FCPA Unit and their experiences navigating heightened scrutiny and shifting resources, and then they offer their perspectives on what lies ahead.

In this re-posted episode, Prof. Mark Pieth discusses his book, Gold Laundering: The dirty secrets of the gold trade - and how to clean up. He outlines the many problems, including child and trafficked labor, environmental degradation, violence, and corruption. He also addresses some modest steps forward and how, in spite of the considerable challenges, more progress can be made. This epsiode was originally posted on December 1, 2021.

In light of last week’s sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried—25 years in prison and an $11 billion forfeiture order—we are re-posting our conversation with Jim Campbell, author of “Madoff Talks” and his comparison of the two men.   Originally posted on January 25, 2023

For this week’s podcast, we listen in on the excellent presentation—dense with practical information—by John Davis, member, Miller & Chevalier, at the TRACE Forum in Annapolis.

This week on Bribe, Swindle, or Steal, we listen in on the presentation of Nicola Bonucci, International Lawyer and former Director for Legal Affairs OECD, at the TRACE Forum in Annapolis. Nicola provides context for recent compliance news from the EU and discusses the adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive at a gathering of compliance experts just three hours after the news broke!

Tom Cardamone, President and CEO of Global Financial Integrity, joins the podcast to discuss the regulatory and enforcement challenges associated with flags of convenience. These range from trafficked labor to environmental violations and Tom highlights the inherent tension between substantial tax incentives on one hand and accountability on the other. Originally posted September 15, 2021

Pavel Verkhniatsky joins the podcast from Kyiv where he is the Managing Partner of COSA Solutions with particular expertise in sophisticated due diligence and cross-border investigations. We range from the very broad and geopolitical to the very specific as Pavel discusses the impact of sanctions on Russia, as well as common due diligence 'red flags'.

Daniel Treisman, co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century, discusses the new generation of dictators and how they weaponize information, bully with legal action and mobilize enablers to stay in power. Originally posted on May 24, 2023

Zeke Faux joins the podcast to talk about the support and credibility provided to oil tankers violating sanctions by the companies that insure them.  Zeke, together with Zachary Mider, wrote an excellent Bloomberg article earlier this month about one New York insurance company that insures a disproportionate number of these aged tankers accused of shipping sanctioned Iranian oil.

In honor of the extraordinarily courageous and principled life of Alexei Navalny, first poisoned with Novichuk and killed today in Polar Wolf prison, we are reposting our 2021 conversation with his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov. Leonid Volkov joins the podcast to talk about Putin's obsessive campaign against Navalny, who was first poisoned with Novichok and later imprisoned. Volkov also discusses the deep roots of corruption in Russia and how the west can support Russians determined to end the looting of their country.

Author, academic and former compliance professional, Alison Taylor joins the podcast to talk about her compelling new book.  She describes the contradictions inherent in companies that talk about “doing well by doing good” and explains why corporate reputation management can’t be an end in itself and how trying to do less can be the best strategy.  “You don’t have to join every conversation”.

Valerie Salembier, former publisher of Harper’s Bazaar and founder of The Authentics Foundation, discusses the true cost of counterfeit luxury items: child labor, trafficked labor and organized crime. Originally published on July 3, 2018

Investigative journalist Erlend Ofte Arntsen of Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang joins the podcast to discuss his work on the Tinder Swindler story, recently adapted into a Netflix documentary. Erlend and his colleagues broke the story of Shimon Hayut, an Israeli con man who found women on the dating app, impressed them with private jets and bodyguards, concocted stories about being in great personal danger and then drained their bank accounts and left them with extraordinary credit card debt. 

Tom Firestone, a partner with Squire Patton Boggs in Washington, discusses the new US Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA).  Tom’s perspective is especially interesting as he previously served as the Legal Adviser at the US Embassy in Moscow dealing with financial crime there and, in 2018, he wrote an article on what was needed to tackle the demand side of bribery.

François Valérian joins the podcast to discuss the platform on which he ran in TI's recent election, his priorities and his thoughts on the state of global anti-corruption efforts.

Dan Kahn, former Chief of the DOJ’s FCPA unit and current partner with Davis Polk, talks us through the anti-corruption enforcement actions, trends and highlights of 2023.

Chaim Gelfand, Vice President, Compliance, at NSO Group joins the podcast to talk about managing compliance for a product that has, baked into its design, complex privacy, corruption and human rights implications. Because of the controversial nature of spyware, we will hear from journalist Khadija Ismayilova next week about the allegation that spyware was installed on her cell phone and her concerns about abuse of the technology. Podcast originally aired: March 8, 2023