On 3 March 2023, the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice published details of a three-year Pilot Program Regarding Compensation Incentives and Clawbacks. The Compensation Pilot Program is effective 15 March 2023 and from that date it will be applicable to all corporate criminal matters handled by the DOJ Criminal Division. At the same time, DOJ also updated its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs guidance document to reflect the criteria introduced by the Compensation Pilot Program, among other updates.
On 22 February 2023, the US Department of Justice announced a new voluntary self-disclosure policy for corporate criminal enforcement in all 94 United States Attorneys’ Offices across the country. This new voluntary self-disclosure policy is a response to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s 15 September 2022 Memorandum insisting all DOJ divisions develop a self-disclosure policy, to the extent one does not already exist. Other DOJ components, including the Criminal Division, have already taken steps to issue or update their own policies on this topic.
On 23 October 2019, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, informally referred to as the “EU Whistleblower Directive”.
Belgium has implemented the EU Whistleblower Directive separately for the public and the private sectors, with the Act of 8 December 2022 on reporting channels and protection of whistleblowers in federal public sector bodies and the integrated police, and the Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of whistleblowers of breaches of Union or national law established within a legal entity in the private sector, published on 15 December 2022, which came into effect on 15 February 2023.
The Belgian act implementing EU Directive 2019/1937 (“Whistleblower Act”) requires legal entities in the private sector to establish channels and procedures for internal reporting and follow-up of reports in specific areas. In this context, the Whistleblower Act established a particular method to calculate the employee headcount within the legal entity with reference to the Belgian legislation on the social elections. However, there has been some uncertainty about how this reference should be applied in the context of the Whistleblower Act.
Our Asia Pacific Employment & Compensation Team is pleased to provide you with our second quarterly update for 2022 highlighting key employment law changes across the Asia Pacific region.
In a series of webinars around the world, join our practitioners to uncover what is driving the future of disputes in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas through a global lens and gather key insights from battle-tested litigators on managing complex and multijurisdictional disputes, strengthening your organization’s litigation preparedness, and staying abreast of the emerging trends and challenges shaping the disputes landscape in the medium-to-long term.
Our Future of Disputes UK Virtual Programme brings speakers from leading in-house institutions – including AON, Gilead, GPW Group, HSBC, JP Morgan, Rio Tinto, Salesforce and Siemens – together with Baker McKenzie dispute resolution specialists to discuss key challenges in litigation, arbitration and investigations likely to arise over the next year. The upcoming webinars will take place on Wednesday 18 May and Thursday 19 May.
In response to increased global enforcement, Baker McKenzie partners developed their unique Investigations Academies, a highly practical and interactive offering that serves to train and educate clients in all aspects of dealing with internal and regulator-imposed investigations. These bespoke training sessions are designed to enhance a company’s existing compliance program and are targeted at increasing awareness within the compliance and legal functions, as well as the broader business leadership group, including HR, finance, commercial, IT and procurement. Click here to access the Investigations Academies brochure.
On 12 November 2021, an administrative judge confirmed a sanction of the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) on an employee involved in a company dawn raid — Hernando Rodríguez (general manager of Roa Florhuila).
This episode goes over the final four fundamental elements of the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s guidelines. These elements are: personnel should have accurate books and accounting records, human resource management policies complementary to anti-bribery measures, companies should have communication mechanisms that encourage the reporting of the suspicion of bribery (whistleblowing), and companies need to review and evaluate anti-bribery prevention measures and their effectiveness.