Compliance & Ethics

In a high-stakes legal battle, a Texas firm once thriving in the cattle industry now finds itself on the hook for defrauding its customers. Agridime LLC, which is currently in receivership, has been ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to pay nearly $103 million in restitution to customers who were duped by its fraudulent activities. This ruling follows a lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over what amounted to a Ponzi scheme disguised as a legitimate cattle investment venture.

Unicat Catalyst Technologies, a Texas-based company specializing in catalytic products for the petrochemical and steel industries, has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), agreeing to pay $3.88 million.

Paddle.com, a U.K.-based payment processor, has agreed to pay $5 million to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The charges center around Paddle’s involvement in enabling deceptive tech-support schemes that preyed on U.S. consumers, particularly older adults.

At the 2025 SIFMA Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crimes Conference in Washington, D.C., Matthew R. Galeotti, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, unveiled significant changes to the Department’s approach to white-collar crime enforcement. In his speech, Galeotti underscored a shift towards increased transparency and fairness for businesses, with an emphasis on self-reporting and cooperation in exchange for more predictable outcomes in investigations and penalties.

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has imposed a €600,000 fine on Innovestica Holdings Inc. The company found itself on the wrong side of Germany’s Securities Trading Act (WpHG) after failing to submit necessary voting rights notifications within the required time frame.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued a hefty penalty of $215,988,868 against GVA Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. The firm is being held accountable for knowingly managing investments linked to Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian oligarch already under sanctions, and for failing to respond properly to an OFAC subpoena. This is a case that underscores the immense risks involved when gatekeepers like venture capital firms fail to uphold sanctions compliance.

Four individuals, including a U.S. government official and three business executives, have admitted their roles in a decade-long bribery and fraud scheme that cost American taxpayers more than $550 million. The guilty pleas mark the end of an extensive investigation into corruption within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where bribery was used to bypass the fair contracting process, all in the name of personal gain.