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Investigations Posts
China, Other Nations Need to Crack Down on Software Piracy
Nov 15, 2012
China, Other Nations Need to Crack Down on Software Piracy
Reuters recently quoted Tian Lipu, head of China’s State Intellectual Office, complaining about China’s reputation for rampant software piracy. According to Tian, “China is the world’s largest payer for patent rights, for trademark rights, for royalties, and one of the largest for buying real software . . . We pay the most. People rarely talk…
DOJ Should Not Withhold Information From Defense in High-Profile Leak Case
Nov 5, 2012
DOJ Should Not Withhold Information From Defense in High-Profile Leak Case
Lawyers for Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former federal contractor employee accused of unlawfully disclosing sensitive information, recently filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia criticizing the government’s withholding of information in the case and asking the court to order the government to produce the documents. The government should not…
DOJ Opinion on Key FCPA Issue Makes Sense, But What’s Next?
Oct 17, 2012
DOJ Opinion on Key FCPA Issue Makes Sense, But What’s Next?
We have previously advocated for the Department of Justice to employ a more narrow reading of the term “foreign official” in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Therefore, we were pleased to see that the DOJ recently issued an opinion that parsed the definition and came to the conclusion that a member of a foreign royal…
Libya Loses Court Battle Over Its Own ‘Libyan Embassy’ Trademark
Sep 19, 2012
Libya Loses Court Battle Over Its Own ‘Libyan Embassy’ Trademark
In an interesting recent opinion, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rebuffed the Libyan Government’s bid to obtain a transfer to it of the domain name registration for libyanembassy.com from a “legalization expeditor” – a company that certifies documents as one step in the process of international legalization of documents (such as…
Executive’s Internet Searches Give SEC the Road Map to Make an Arrest
Aug 17, 2012
Executive’s Internet Searches Give SEC the Road Map to Make an Arrest
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged an executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb with insider trading, citing his Internet searches as support that he tried to cover up his illegal acts. As a high-level executive in the treasury department at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Robert D. Ramnarine helped the company target, evaluate, and acquire other pharmaceutical companies….
Judge Clamps Down on DOJ Efforts to Apply U.S. Law Abroad
Aug 6, 2012
Judge Clamps Down on DOJ Efforts to Apply U.S. Law Abroad
The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent boasts about rigorous enforcement of the securities laws ran into a significant obstacle this month when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed part of a $50 million securities fraud case and accused DOJ prosecutors of overreaching. In an increasingly global economy, the case is a good measure of…
Department of Justice Enters Historic Agreement with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker
Jul 31, 2012
Department of Justice Enters Historic Agreement with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker
Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and the U.S. Department of Justice announced today that PokerStars will acquire Full Tilt Poker’s assets in a transaction that ends the DOJ’s civil forfeiture case against Full Tilt. Both Full Tilt and PokerStars ran online poker sites in the U.S., and in 2011 the DOJ charged both of them with…
DOJ’s Response to Grassley Gives Details, but Not the Right Details
Jun 4, 2012
DOJ’s Response to Grassley Gives Details, but Not the Right Details
The Justice Department showed off some fancy dance moves in a recent sidestep it used to respond to an inquiry from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Grassley wanted detail from Justice to support its claims that it has brought thousands of mortgage fraud cases, including numerous convictions against Wall Street execs, following the 2008 housing crisis….
Worst Part of Wal-Mart Bribery Case Is Failure to Conduct Proper Investigation
Apr 24, 2012
Worst Part of Wal-Mart Bribery Case Is Failure to Conduct Proper Investigation
Over the weekend, The New York Times broke a major story, publishing a highly detailed 8,000-word article that seems to indicate that Wal-Mart not only engaged in a pattern of bribery of Mexican government officials in the mid-2000s but also that the company intentionally stifled an internal investigation of the alleged bribery and in fact…
Suspect Extradited From Estonia to Face Massive Internet Fraud Charges
Apr 23, 2012
Suspect Extradited From Estonia to Face Massive Internet Fraud Charges
One of the features of crimes committed over the Internet is that they may be committed from anywhere in the world where a defendant has access a computer. A current case in New York shows that extradition likewise can reach around the globe. On April 19, 2012, Anton Ivanov was extradited from Estonia to face…
