Cross-Border Enforcement Issues

Subscribe to Cross-Border Enforcement Issues via RSS

Internal investigations and public enforcement actions often pose legal issues involving multiple practice areas and jurisdictions.

In Italy, internal investigations may concern criminal, corporate, contract, data protection and labor law issues.

In the past, internal investigations in Italy tended to be mainly “reactive,” responding to public enforcement activities. The challenge in these investigations was balancing complying with disclosure obligations in relation to public enforcement authorities with volunteering confidential or disproportionate information.
Continue Reading Internal Investigations and Public Enforcement: Italy at a Glance

Companies operating in Italy should take note of an important change in Italian law introducing more comprehensive regulations on whistleblowing procedures in the public and non-financial private sector. Among other relevant aspects, Law No. 179/2017, which entered into force on December 29, 2017, expands existing whistleblowing protections to the private sector, requiring companies that have adopted formal compliance programs pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 231/2001 (“Decree 231”) to also implement a formal whistleblower program.

Prior to Law No. 179/2017, only financial services and banking firms were required to implement formal whistleblower programs, pursuant to Italian legislation implementing European Directive 23/2013 (CRDIV).  In addition, Law No. 190/2012, also called the “Anticorruption Law,” provided protection against retaliation for civil servants who reported the commission of a wrongdoing.  Many companies operating in Italy have adopted formal compliance programs pursuant to Decree 231, incentivized by a provision that affords a defense against certain types of criminal offences for firms with such a program. Law No. 179/2017 requires such companies to integrate a formal whistleblower policy as part of their compliance programs.
Continue Reading The New Italian Law on Whistleblowing Procedures and Its Impact on Compliance Programs

2017 was a year of transition and change in the world of cross-border investigations. In the U.S., the first year of the Trump administration brought questions about enforcement priorities and approach. In the U.K., the debate continued over whether lawyers’ work in furtherance of internal investigations enjoys privilege protection. Globally, new enforcement authorities stepped forward,…

On October 26, the SEC staff provided, in three related no-action letters, a 30-month grace period during which it will not pursue enforcement actions against U.S. broker-dealers and their client money managers subject to European Union regulations, including investment advisers, for accepting or making direct and separate (i.e., hard dollar) payments for research.  This grace period temporarily relieves a regulatory conflict concerning how market participants provide and pay for research between current U.S. securities laws and the European Union’s new Markets in Finance Instruments Directive (MiFID II) rules, which will take effect on January 3, 2018.
Continue Reading The SEC’s Temporary Enforcement Grace Period to Mitigate Legal Status and Operational Implementation Issues Over the EU’s New Research Regulation