SEC Charges Global Oil and Gas Services Company with Violations of the FCPA

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the institution of settled cease and desist proceedings against TechnipFMC plc, a global oil and gas services company, for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by FMC Technologies prior to its 2017 merger with Technip S.A. 

The SEC’s order finds that FMC Technologies used a Monaco-based intermediary to bribe Iraqi government officials in order to obtain contracts to provide metering technologies for oil and gas production measurement to Iraqi state owned oil companies. read more »

PwC to pay $7.9M for violating auditor independence rules

PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to pay $7.9 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for violations of auditor independence rules and engaging in improper professional conduct on 19 engagements with 15 audit clients, the SEC said Monday.

The SEC also charged PwC partner Brandon Sprankle, who specializes in Oracle security controls, with causing PwC’s independence violations. Both he and the firm have agreed to settle the charges, with PwC paying over $7.9 million. read more »

Crash Course: How Boeing’s Managerial Revolution Created the 737 Disaster

Nearly two decades before Boeing’s MCAS system crashed two of the plane-maker’s brand-new 737 MAX jets, Stan Sorscher knew his company’s increasingly toxic mode of operating would create a disaster of some kind. A long and proud “safety culture” was rapidly being replaced, he argued, with “a culture of financial bullshit, a culture of groupthink.”

Sorscher, a physicist who’d worked at Boeing more than two decades and had led negotiations there for the engineers’ union, had become obsessed with management culture. He said he didn’t previously imagine Boeing’s brave new managerial caste creating a problem as dumb and glaringly obvious as MCAS (or the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, as a handful of software wizards had dubbed it). read more »

Russian Man Pleads Guilty in ‘Massive’ Hacking Scheme

Andrei Tyurin is the first person to be convicted in the case, in which prosecutors said cyberattacks targeted a dozen American companies, including JPMorgan Chase.

A Russian man pleaded guilty on Monday to taking part in a global, multiyear hacking operation that involved cyberattacks on a dozen American companies and an elaborate scheme to use stolen information to manipulate stocks and run illegal online-gambling businesses.

The man, Andrei Tyurin, 35, of Moscow, is the first person to be convicted in the case, which prosecutors have called one of the largest hacking cases ever uncovered. The information of more than 100 million customers was compromised, including the breach of 83 million customer accounts at JPMorgan Chase in 2014. read more »