Overview The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), housed at Syracuse University, researches and distributes data about the federal government’s enforcement work. As TRAC itself explains, it seeks to answers questions about government enforcement work – questions that burn in the souls of lawyers who defend companies and people being investigated or prosecuted for crimes or…
Agency inspector general offices investigate complaints from persons in the federal government ecosystem who complain about waste, fraud, abuse of authority; violations of law, regulations or policies; or danger to public health or safety; and, suffer some type of adverse employment action for doing so. Since the enormous Department of Defense (DoD) gets so…
The Federal Government wants employees of contractors and subcontract and independent contractors to disclose to the government instances of fraud, waste, abuse of authority; violations of law, regulations or policies; or substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. Once someone makes a disclosure of this nature, laws and regulations protect them so they…
Nothing induces shell shock for both lawyers and business people like reading a federal government request for proposal or contract for the first time. There are a number of reasons for this: The RFP/contract goes on for pages, often in excess of 100 pages The RFP/contact is filled with government lingo The RFP/contract has pages…
My good friends and esteemed colleagues over at Law Offices of Sara Kropf, Sara Kropf and Dan Portnov, recently wrote a blog post asking the white-collar defense community whether they have encountered federal government contractors rather than government employees, prosecutors and federal agents conducting government investigations. Read the full post: Government Contractors Conducting Investigations: A…
In my line of work, I collaborate with risk management executives a lot. I have learned much from them since they are indispensable to the process of conceptualizing and mitigating business risks and legal risks. When working through a challenging legal issue that may cause the &$%* to hit the fan, many risk management leaders…
It kills me to delete files or to shred files. I am not alone in my pack rat ways – many of us hoard our files (and other “stuff”). Businesses try everything under the sun to get their employees to comply with well-crafted, legally appropriate document destruction policies. Some businesses have a designated document destruction…
According to a recent DOJ non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with Credit Suisse Hong Kong, the popular Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day got a little twisted. According to the facts in the NPA, the daughter of a high-ranking Chinese foreign official took her mom on her Credit Suisse business trips. This was possible because…
Question: What do: Cuban cigars A gas line to a heated pool Dinners at a French restaurant A job with a prestigious bank A charitable contribution Have in common? Answer: Each was considered a bribe in a corruption and/or racketeering scheme to improperly influence a government official or government employee to use their position to…
In federal government contracting, small businesses that have been awarded the status by the federal government as a “small” business are eligible to receive federal government contracts that are specifically “set-aside” for small businesses and other benefits designed to help them grow and prosper. But, your status as a small business may be destroyed if…