Corporations can take a number of steps to make sure their compliance procedures will allow them to qualify for potential declinations under DOJ’s new corporate enforcement policies, lawyers said this week. But they also said certain parts of the new DOJ policies could be clearer, including the agency’s definition for “extraordinary” cooperation during an investigation.

Law firm Quinn Emanuel will open an office in Beijing, its second office in mainland China. The new office will bolster the firm's China practice on matters including international arbitration and government agency investigations, among them DOJ, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Quinn Emanuel also helps large companies with "critical internal investigations and government enforcement actions involving their China operations," the firm said. Xiao Liu, Quinn Emanuel's China practice chair, will head the Beijing office.

DOJ last week announced “significant changes” to how it assesses corporate compliance programs’ approach to communications platforms, which could impact whether the agency offers to resolve an investigation without criminal charges. Under the revised policies, companies that claim to not have access to emails and other electronic information related to a DOJ probe may have to prove to the agency that they can’t access those messages, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said.

Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson announced Feb. 28 that Laurie Waddy will step down as the company's chief compliance officer after nearly four years in the role. Waddy has stood at the center of Ericsson's compliance efforts amid alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is "unlikely" to revisit its 2004 decision finding that False Claims Act qui tam cases involving customs duty avoidance belong at the Court of International Trade, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a Feb. 23 blog post. Overturning the decision would require an en banc ruling from the court, something that does not seem probable given that it is a whistleblower action in which the government hasn't intervened, the post said.

Global law firm Akerman created a new Economic Sanctions and Export Controls Practice team. The group will work to assess "the scope and impact of sanctions and export controls" and design compliance programs, while also "litigating prohibited persons designations, freeing frozen assets, responding to audits, and obtaining licenses," it said Feb. 24.

The Commerce Department and DOJ this week launched a new task force to “target illicit actors” and protect critical technologies from being acquired by “nation-state adversaries.” The Disruptive Technology Strike Force -- which will be led by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security and DOJ’s National Security Division -- will focus on investigating and prosecuting criminal export violations, improving “administrative enforcement” of export controls, coordinating law enforcement actions and “disruption strategies” with U.S. allies and more.

The Court of International Trade's recent decision against the use of first sale valuation for Meyer Corp.'s cookware imports "is a cautionary tale" for importers, customs attorney Lawrence Friedman, partner at Barnes Richardson, wrote in a Feb. 15 blog post. In instances in which parties involved in a potential first-sale transaction are related, such as Meyer's, Friedman said that CBP will "take a very detailed look into the whole series of transactions" and that the importer should expect to show that each tier is a bona fide sale for export to the U.S.

DOJ this week released its revised criminal corporate enforcement policies for voluntary self-disclosures, outlining new criteria companies must meet to qualify for declinations even in cases where there are aggravating factors. The new updates, which are the “first significant changes” to the Criminal Division’s corporate enforcement policies (CEP) since 2017, offer companies “new, significant, and concrete incentives to self-disclose misconduct,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said, speaking at Georgetown Law Center. He also said they give companies incentives to “go far above and beyond the bare minimum when they cooperate with our investigations.”

International law firm Morrison Foerster rung in the new year by announcing that it completed its combination with litigation boutique firm Durie Tangri. Morrison Foerster said that the addition of Durie Tangri's lawyers would strengthen its practice in intellectual property (patent, trademark and copyright), professional liability, white-collar crime and investigations, contract and commercial proceedings, and class actions.