Welcome to Compliance Hot Spots, and good evening from Washington. This week, Williams & Connolly appears to have made its first foray into FARA, and Anthony Levandowski, the former head of Google's autonomous vehicle unit, has picked his legal team to ward of theft of trade secret charges. Tips, feedback and general thoughts on your practices are always appreciated. I'm C. Ryan Barber—reach me at [email protected] and 202-828-0315, or follow me on Twitter @cryanbarber. Thanks for reading!

New FARA: Williams & Connolly Is Repping Kanbawza Bank

Facing potential sanctions stemming from a United Nations report, the Kanbawza Bank of Myanmar has hired Williams & Connolly and partner David Aufhauser, a former general counsel to the U.S. Treasury Department and United Bank of Switzerland AG, my colleague Phillip Bantz reports.

Williams & Connolly revealed the engagement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA an 80-year-old law that has found renewed attention as part of various investigations and prosecutions flowing from the special counsel's Russia investigation. Kanbawza Bank, a private commercial bank, agreed to pay the firm a $250,000 retainer.

Aufhauser is working with David Zinn, William Winn and Joanna Evans, the FARA filings show. Zinn is co-chairman of the firm's criminal defense and investigations practice. Aufhauser and Zinn are billing at $965 per hour; Evans at $620 per hour; and Winn at $535 per hour, according to the filings.

Aufhauser served as the Treasury Department's general counsel from 2001 to 2003. During that time, he oversaw the rollout of the agency's economic sanctions program and the Patriot Act. He joined UBS as its top lawyer in 2004, a position he held until 2008.

"In order to complete this engagement, registrant anticipates conducting a fact finding investigation, preparing a report summarizing its findings, and appearing in any U.S.-based litigation or regulatory enforcement," Williams & Connolly said in the FARA filings.

The recent UN Human Rights Council Report on Myanmar named KBZ Bank's parent company, KBZ Group, as one of two firms that allegedly helped finance the construction of a fence along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, Bantz reported.

Williams & Connolly said in its FARA filings: "Additional services will potentially include providing advice regarding legal consequences of the report, providing advice on lobbying and public relations issues related to the representation, lobbying U.S. government officials in the Executive Branch, Congress, and/or the United Nations, and discussing the matter with U.S. or international media organizations."

Who Got the Work

>> Ismail Ramsey and Miles Ehrlich (above right) of Ramsey & Ehrlich are representing Anthony Levandowski (above left), the former head of Google's autonomous vehicle unit who was at the center of the company's high-profile dispute with Uber Technologies. Prosecutors last week charged Levandowski with federal trade-secret theft charges. "This case rehashes claims already discredited in a civil case that settled more than a year and a half ago," the defense lawyers said. U.S. Attorney David Anderson of the Northern District of California said in a statement: "All of us have the right to change jobs. None of us has the right to fill our pockets on the way out the door. Theft is not innovation."

>> Joseph Larkin, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, is defending Sabre Corp.'s proposed acquisition of Farelogix Inc. The Justice Department sued in Delaware federal district court on Aug. 20 to block the merger.

>> A team from Williams and Jensen—including Joel Oswald, David Franasiakand Christopher Wilcox—has registered to lobby for San Francisco-based Ripple Labs on "digital Assets, crypto currencies, blockchain and related legislation; H.R. 2144, The Token Taxonomy Act of 2019."

Compliance Reading Corner

>> US Labor Nominee Eugene Scalia Earned $6.2M as Gibson Dunn Partner. Eugene Scalia, President Donald Trump's appointee to replace Alex Acosta as Secretary of Labor, earned over $6.2 million last year from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. His disclosures further flesh out that list, with banks and financial services firms such as Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, HSBC and Bank of America; retailers CVS and Walmart; and energy industry names such as Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute. Other marquee names include Facebook and Warner Bros. [Law.com] Read Scalia's financial disclosure here.

>> Deripaska Says U.S. Fails to Prove He Acted as Putin Agent. "Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska wants a U.S. judge to lift sanctions against him because, he claims, the U.S. Treasury Department failed to prove he acted as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin." [Bloomberg]

>> How Deutsche Bank Maneuvered Around Compliance Officers and Paid the Price. Detailed government documents describe how senior Deutsche Bank managers ignored, went around and pushed through compliance efforts in order to hire relatives of foreign officials and obtain lucrative deals. [Law.com]

>> Vin Weber Resigns from Lobbying Firm After Scrutiny Over Ukraine Work With Manafort. "Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman who went on to become a prominent lobbyist, has resigned from his lobbying firm, citing the ongoing scrutiny of his work years ago with Paul Manafort on behalf of Ukrainian interests. Weber decided to leave Mercury, the lobbying and public affairs firm where he was a partner, 'to remove the distraction for Mercury's clients and to focus my time and energy on protecting my reputation.'" [Politico] The Washington Post has more here.

>> The Trump Row Aside, Here's How Subpoena Recipients Can Respond Effectively. "The zero-sum political battle between the president and the House incentivizes a drag-out fight in the courts. Most recipients, however, will be able to find common ground with Congress, especially if they act quickly, consider the goals of the particular committee issuing the subpoena and strike the right balance between satisfying the committee and protecting their interests," MoloLamkenattorneys Justin Shur, Caleb Hayes-Deats and Allison Gorsuch write. [National Law Journal]

>> SEC Charges Investment Advisers With Defrauding NFL Players. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued a Tallahassee-based investment adviser firm and its two former principals Tuesday, alleging they defrauded investors. Those investors were mostly retired NFL players in a class action lawsuit against the league claiming they suffered brain injuries as a result of concussions. Many had risked their NFL retirement funds. [Law.com]

>> VW Retains Access to U.S. Public Sector Contracts, Agrees to Second Monitor at HQ. "Volkswagen will not be excluded from public sector contracts in the United States following its emissions scandal but will install a second U.S. monitor at its German headquarters, a spokesman for the carmaker said on Monday." [Reuters]

Notable Moves & More

>> Robert Khuzami (above) has joined asset manager and investment bank Guggenheim Partners, one of his former clients. Khuzami, a former director of the SEC's enforcement division, Kirkland & Ellis partner and senior in-house lawyer at Deutsche Bank, was most recently the right-hand man to U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan. Guggenheim Partners announced Tuesday that Khuzami was joining the firm, effective immediately, as a managing partner and chief legal officer.

>> Brett Shumate, a former top Trump Justice Department lawyer, has landed at Jones Day. Shumate had joined the Trump administration from Wiley Rein. We had the scoop in April when Shumate said he was leaving Main Justice. Shumate had been at Wiley Rein since 2007. At the firm, he reported earning $577,795 in salary and bonus, according to his financial disclosure.

>> The Securities and Exchange Commission named Monique Winkler as the associate regional director for enforcement in the San Francisco regional office. Winkler joined the SEC in 2008. She succeeds Erin Schneider, who was named regional director of the San Francisco office in May.

>> John Hundley has joined Ballard Spahr as of counsel in the firm's Washington office. Hundley, who focuses on white-collar defense, joins from LeClairRyan.

>> Dilworth Paxson has added Andrew Leven as of counsel to the firm's white-collar and government investigations department in its Princeton, New Jersey, office. Leven has experience as a federal prosecutor and defense attorney. He also served as the worldwide health care compliance director at the Cordis Corp., a medical device company, then owned by Johnson & Johnson.

>> The Chicago-based mobile money transferring platform Pangea Money Transfer has hired Alex Levine as general counsel and chief compliance officer. Levine will also lead the company's regulatory affairs function for its global operations.