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Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime Crime Without Conviction: The Rise of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements Top Ten Corporate and White Collar Crime Prosecutors Top 100 False Claims Act Settlements Top 10 White Collar Crime Defense Lawyers Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s Public Corruption in the United States Subscribe Now Subscribe to Corporate Crime Reporter Weekly Print Edition
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Wire
MARK MENDELSOHN ON THE
RISE OF FCPA ENFORCEMENT Say five years ago? When the Justice Department brought a total of four or five Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases a year? This year, that number might be over 40 – an eight fold increase in five years. Why the acceleration? More foreign bribery? Doubtful. Try increased enforcement. And the prosecutor generally acknowledged to have ramped up the program? Mark Mendelsohn.
THE CASE AGAINST CORPORATE
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Ballinger is the father of the movement to tame Nike. In 1992, he wrote the first expose of Nike's abusive labor policies. Ballinger believes that the corporate social responsibility movement undermined Nike contract workers’ demands for a decent wage. Aneel Karnani is an associate professor of business strategy at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Last month, the Wall Street Journal published a long article by Karnani titled – “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility.” In short, Ballinger is a labor activist. And Karnani is a capitalist. They come at the issue from different angles – but they end up at the same place.
FACTORY FARMS MAKE YOU SICK, LET US COUNT THE WAYS WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 27,
2010 Let us count the ways. Just last week, more than half a billion eggs recalled. Why? Salmonella poisoning. More than 1,300 people sick. Just last week, a recall of more than 380,000 pounds of deli meat products distributed nationwide to Wal-Mart stores. Why?
RIDGEWAY ON AMERICA’S
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT NIGHTMARE But it never worked out. His DNA wouldn’t allow it. He was always an outsider. Always taking the side of the less powerful. As a student at Princeton in the 1950s, James Ridgeway worked on the student newspaper to expose the elitism and racism at the university’s eating club system. As a reporter at The New
Republic in the 1960s, he exposed General Motors for spying on his
friend Ralph Nader. And now, he says he working to expose President Obama’s lie that “America doesn’t torture.
COSMETICS INDUSTRY GEARS
UP TO DEFEAT REGULATION For 70 years, the industry has regulated itself. But last month, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) introduced legislation – HR 5786 – that for the first time gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to ensure that personal care products are free of harmful ingredients. Existing law, passed in 1938, granted decision-making about ingredient safety to the cosmetics industry. “The stakes are rising,” Stacy Malkan of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics told Corporate Crime Reporter last week. “The legislation is a key focal point. They have hired ex-members of Congress, public relations people, and lobbyists to get ready for this.” The main industry trade group – the Personal Care Products Council – has hired John Bailey – the man who for thirty years headed the FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors. “It’s the first time in over 70 that we have a serious attempt to overhaul cosmetic regulation,” Malkan said. “The system that we have currently is that the industry is in charge of regulating itself.” DON BLANKENSHIP HATES
THE POLICE And left a lasting impression. And the impression was this: Don Blankenship hates the police. The police in this case work at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Blankenship was asked: With the benefit of hindsight, what could you have done, and what have you done, to minimize the chance of an explosion like the one that claimed 29 lives? And Blankenship answered: I would have sued the police earlier.
SKADDEN’S LOUCKS
ON HEALTH CARE FRAUD He was based in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston. He brought the big cases. And secured a string of criminal convictions against some of the biggest corporations in America – and their executives. Then earlier this year, he decide he’d rather switch than fight. So, he signed on as a partner in Skadden, Arps’ Boston office. Defending the corporate criminals he used to prosecute.
THOUSANDS INJURED, 275
DEAD, WR GRACE NOT GUILTY Supplying the world with materials for insulation and potting soil. One problem. The vermiculite has asbestos. And the asbestos has poisoned the town. Killed 275 of its residents. And sickened thousands of others. For years, the feds didn’t do anything about it. Neither did the state of Montana.
SKADDEN’S ZORNOW
ON PROSECUTIONS DEFERRED They accepted deferred prosecution agreements from the Justice Department. Translation – the Department couldn’t win these cases. And they couldn’t just drop them. So, to save face, they did the next best thing. DPA.
THE CASE AGAINST KEN
FEINBERG His expertise? Collusive class actions. Limiting the liability of toxic tortfeasors. And covering up corporate and governmental wrongdoing. That’s the take of public interest attorney Rob Hager. Feinberg is now working to limit the liability of BP in the Gulf oil spill case. But Hager first ran into Feinberg while litigating the Agent Orange case back in the 1980s.
ASHLEY JUDD, DON BLANKENSHIP
AND THE RAPE OF APPALACHIA Judd is an actress. A recent graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School. And an activist. Judd wants to defeat the coal industry’s practice of blowing the tops off of mountains. Judd spoke passionately about her love for Appalachia – she grew up in eastern Kentucky. And her disgust with the coal industry’s practice of mountaintop removal. Blasting off the tops of mountains to get at a seam of coal. Judd called it the “rape of Appalachia.” She called it “environmental genocide.”
GREEN CHANGE WANTS DELAWARE
TO REVOKE BP’S CORPORATE CHARTER Others would debar BP from federal contracts. But a group called Green Change is calling for the corporate death penalty. It is calling on the state of Delaware to revoke BP’s corporate charter. “BP deserves the corporate death penalty,” Green Change co-founder Gary Ruskin told Corporate Crime Reporter last week. “ BP America Inc. does not have a God given right to perpetually violate our laws with near impunity.”
PASCAL SPILLS IT ON
BP, SPORKIN, AND THE DISASTER IN THE GULF Up until three months ago, when she retired, Jeanne Pascal was an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Her beat: debarment of BP. For years, she worked on the BP case. After all BP’s rap sheet was long and nasty – three convictions, an $84 million OSHA fine, and a deferred prosecution agreement. Last year, Pascal was inclined to debar BP – strip it of its government contracts – because of its repeat violations. But the Pentagon intervened.
MINNESS JUSTICE ON MASSEY,
MSHA AND THE BATTLE FOR COAL MINE SAFETY Then, in 1992, he took a $60,000 cut in salary to go to work for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). He was forced out of MSHA in December 2008. Why? “I was considered unmanageable,” Justice told Corporate Crime Reporter last week. “That was the word that was used to describe Minness Justice. That basically meant – I did what I was supposed to do. I didn’t give a crap who I upset.” Massey was the worst company he inspected. After a while, MSHA kept Justice away from Massey mines. Why?
BP, MASSEY, TOYOTA AND
THE FAILURE OF THE REGULATORY STATE Twenty-nine coal miners dead in a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia. Eighty-nine people dead as a result of Toyota sudden acceleration crashes. Why? The regulatory state is in shambles. That’s the take of Rena Steinzor. She is a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. And she is President of the Center for Progressive Reform. She is also co-author with Sidney Shapiro of a new book – The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public – Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
COAL INTIMIDATION And you want the local prosecutor to bring a criminal charge against Massey Energy. And the responsible Massey executives. For manslaughter. For the deaths of the 29 coal miners who were killed on April 5. At the Upper Big Branch Mine. In Raleigh County. So you put up a web site – prosecutemassey.org. And you urge people to sign a petition to the prosecuting attorney in Raleigh County – Kristen Keller – urging her to bring a prosecution.
TOYOTA SUDDEN ACCELERATION
CRASHES LINKED TO 89 DEATHS That’s up from 52 deaths last reported in March. Toyota faces scores of product liability and class actions lawsuits over the issue. Toyota has paid a fine of $16.4 million for failing to alert NHTSA about certain defects related to the sudden acceleration. There is an ongoing criminal investigation Byron Bloch is an auto safety expert based in Potomac, Maryland. Bloch says the acceleration problem at Toyota could have been nailed down earlier. But for political problems at NHTSA.
O’NEILL CONSIDERING
LITIGATING BP GULF SPILL Done that. For 21 years. O’Neill was the trial lawyer in charge of litigating the Exxon Valdez case. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez supertanker hit Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska – spilling 11 million gallons of crude. O’Neill, a partner at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis, has been litigating the case ever since. That would be 21 years.
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Corporate Crime Reporter Interviews, 1987 to 2010
Sample Interviews Interview with Mary Jo White, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton, New York, New York
Interview with David Pitofsky, Partner, Goodwin & Procter, New York, New York
Interview with Neil Getnick, Getnick & Getnick, New York, New York
Interview with David Kelley, Partner, Cahill Gordon, New York, New York
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