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Compliance Trends

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday obtained final judgment against a former Goldman Sachs executive charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client win a power plant contract in the Republic of Ghana.

Asante Berko will disgorge $275,000 in ill-gotten gains, plus approximately $54,000 in prejudgment interest. He neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings. Though the SEC does not name Goldman Sachs in any of its filings, Berko’s past as a former executive at the bank’s London subsidiary has been widely reported. Read More

Amid an unprecedented year, the World Bank Group concluded 18 settlement agreements in fiscal year 2021 with companies or individuals who participated in World Bank-financed operations across 13 countries. The final three of these settlements, which resolve matters of sanctionable misconduct, were announced today.

Each of today’s announced settlement agreements highlights aspects of the World Bank Group’s efforts to promote higher integrity standards in Bank Group-financed projects. Read more

Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp was ordered to pay a 225 million-euro ($266 million) penalty for failing to be transparent about how it handled personal information, its first fine under beefed-up European Union data protection law.

The Irish Data Protection Commission — Silicon Valley’s main privacy watchdog in Europe — said it found violations in the way WhatsApp explained how it processed users’ and non-users’ data, as well as how data was shared between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies. Read More

Email-linked threats and data breaches are considered to be the most serious cyber security threats to businesses in Africa, most notably to those in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

This is according to Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which released the findings of its Cyber Security Report 2021 today. In an overview of the threat landscape across these markets, South African and Zimbabwean businesses have indicated that email threats – specifically ransomware and malware – is a major threat, while their Kenyan counterparts have singled out data breaches. Read More

In mid-September, the UN announced that all Gabonese military units deployed to the CAR were being immediately repatriated following credible reports of alleged abuse of five girls.

“Since the allegations came to light, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Gabonese authorities have collected evidence which, we understand, would allow the Gabonese authorities to complete their national investigation and inform us of its outcome,” said Mr. Haq.