Welcome to Compliance Hot Spots, our Law.com briefing on white-collar enforcement, regulatory and compliance. This week we've got a report on some personnel moves at Main Justice, and scroll down for Who Got the Work and major headlines that caught my eye.

Tips, feedback and general thoughts on your practices are always appreciated. I'm C. Ryan Barber in Washington, and you can reach me at [email protected] and 202-828-0315. Follow me on Twitter @cryanbarber. Thanks for reading!

Key DOJ Litigator Moves to Barr Front Office

James Burnham, a top U.S. Justice Department lawyer who has defended the Trump administration in lawsuits filed by House Democrats, is moving to a new role in U.S. Attorney General William Barr's front office at the end of the month.

Burnham, since last April, has served as the deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the federal programs branch of the Justice Department's civil division, a visible litigation role that has made him a mainstay in high-profile court cases involving House oversight requests and challenges to Trump administration policies. House lawyers have characterized the administration's defiance of congressional subpoenas as "unprecedented."

A former Jones Day associate, Burnham joined the Trump White House in 2017 before moving over to Main Justice. He becomes the latest former Trump White House lawyer in Barr's front office, joining the attorney general's chief of staff, Brian Rabbitt, and deputy chief of staff John Moran. Another former White House lawyer, Claire Murray is serving as principal deputy associate attorney general, making her effectively the third-ranking Justice Department official in the absence of a Senate-confirmed associate attorney general.

Burnham's defense of the Trump administration centered largely on challenging the House's ability to take the executive branch to court. And it remains to be seen how successful the Justice Department will be on those arguments. The D.C. Circuit could rule soon on whether Donald McGahn, the former Trump White House counsel, can be forced to appear for testimony in front of House Democrats. A trial judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, ruled against the Justice Department.

Burnham's portfolio in Barr's front office is expected to include speech writing and policy related to civil litigation. His successor leading the federal programs branch, David Morrell, is a former Jones Day associate and clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. Morrell was part of the DOJ team that took over the census litigation as the Justice Department plotted a path to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling that went against the Trump administration.

Key Takeaways From Treasury's CFIUS Rules

Long-awaited final rules from the U.S. Treasury Department governing national security reviews of foreign investments in U.S. companies have been issued, and there are some early takeaways for general counsel, my colleagues MP McQueen reports. The Treasury Department generally excluded from the new regulations most deals from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, unless there is a concern about foreign control of the acquiring companies.

>> Christian Davis, an international trade partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld: "General counsel and in-house counsel at companies involved in technology, infrastructure and data, which capture a broad spectrum of the economy, should be aware of these changes, particularly the expanded jurisdiction of CFIUS and mandatory reporting requirements."

>> Mario Mancuso, partner at Kirkland & Ellis and leader of its international trade and national security practice: "The selection of the U.K., Australia, and Canada as the first 'excepted foreign states' is not surprising in light of their shared security perspectives and interests. With that said, it's important to note that not every investor from one of these countries will be exempt from CFIUS' jurisdiction, and the exemption applies only to certain non-controlling investments and real estate transactions. In other words, the CFIUS calculus for traditional M&A will not materially change as a result of this action."

>> Giovanna Cinelli, leader of the international trade and national security practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, said the Treasury Department resisted calls from some trade groups for the new regulations to narrowly define "national security." Instead, she said, the department "confirmed its longstanding approach that there is no set definition of national security and it wouldn't be appropriate to come up with a standing definition."

Who Got the Work

>> Apple hired Hogan Lovells partner Lisa Ellman, a top expert on regulations addressing drones, to lobby on "issues related to the use and regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles." Ellman serves as one of the executive directors for the nonprofit Commercial Drone Alliance, a group that has pushed the federal government to foster the development and wider deployment of drones in the United States. She was hired in 2018 to lobby for Major League Baseball on the same issue.

>> A team at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld registered to lobby for the Chinese telecom giant ZTE "in connection with rendering legal and compliance advice on U.S. law." Akin Gump said the representation could include educating U.S. officials on ZTE's compliance with the terms of settlements resolving claims that the company violated sanctions. Under the settlement terms, the Commerce Department initially picked Covington & Burling to serve as ZTE's independent compliance monitor but scrapped that selection at the last minute after discovering a top partner's past opposition to President Donald Trump.

>> A Venable team including Joshua Finestone and Nicholas Choate will lobby for the cybersecurity firm McAfee LLC on "cybersecurity issues," along with "federal information technology reform issues."

Compliance Reading Corner

Legal business

Crowell Launches State AG Practice With Sidley Partner as Lead. Crowell & Moring became the latest major law firm to establish a state attorneys general practice group, pushing back against states that have become more aggressive in using their oversight, investigative and enforcement powers. Clayton Friedman, who is leaving the partnership at Sidley Austin to lead Crowell's new state attorneys general enforcement and investigations practice, said companies often don't know how to manage an investigation by government regulators. [NLJ]

AB InBev Taps Machine Learning to Root Out Corruption. "Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, the world's largest brewer, has spent three years developing machine-learning technology that can identify risky business partners and potentially illegal payments. The analytics platform, BrewRight, draws on data from operations in more than 50 countries, allowing the company to proactively monitor legal risks and prevent violations, instead of focusing on investigating problems after they arise." [WSJ]

Courts and cases

DOJ Warns Search Warrant Ruling Could 'Seriously Disrupt' Investigations. Federal prosecutors in Maryland are warning about the possibility of "seriously disrupted" criminal investigations following a U.S. appeals court ruling that questioned the integrity of allowing government agents to use their own internal teams, and not the courts, to review certain materials seized during the execution of search warrants. The government has asked the full Fourth Circuit appeals court to rehear the panel's decision slamming "filter teams." [NLJ]

A Former MoFo Operations Manager Is Accused of $400K Credit Card Fraud Scheme. A former operations manager at Morrison & Foerster is under arrest for allegedly misusing a firm's credit card to make $400,000 in unauthorized personal purchases. [NLJ]

Enforcement and compliance

Trump Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow: White House Is 'Looking At' Changes to Global Anti-Bribery Law. "We are looking at it, and we have heard some complaints from our companies," Kudlow said, responding to a question about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law generally prohibits American companies from paying bribes to secure contracts overseas. "I don't want to say anything definitive policy-wise, but we are looking at it," Kudlow added. [CNBC]

For Tech Companies, Election-Year Politics May Limit New Regulation. "The U.S. electoral calendar will likely lead to an escalation in Washington's criticism of big tech companies this year. But politics could delay any major U.S. regulatory decision-making until after the elections are over, say legal, policy and tech experts." [WSJ]

U.S. Securities Examiners to Focus on Investment Advice, Outsourcing Risks. "U.S. securities regulators plan to take a closer look at how companies are complying with new rules on investment advice and how they are managing risks posed by outsourcing key services. The compliance priorities, published last week by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, offer companies a glimpse of what regulators may focus on during examinations in the year ahead." [WSJ]

Carnival's First Compliance Officer Rushing to Prove Value of New Centralized System. "After serving as a federal prosecutor, Peter Anderson carved out a successful career as an environmental and white-collar criminal defense attorney in Asheville, North Carolina. Then he gave it all up to move in-house. Miami-based Carnival Corp. offered him a challenge he couldn't refuse: become its first chief ethics and compliance officer and fix the cruise line's compliance system that was so broken a federal judge once threatened to jail its top executives for repeatedly polluting the ocean." [Law.com]

Notable Moves

>> Jones Day has hired an investigations and white-collar defense practice partner in Düsseldorf, my colleague Eva von Schaper reports. Thomas Preute, who previously worked at a boutique firm in Germany, joins at a time when the volume of investigations, as well as the demands for compliance, have grown rapidly in Germany due to stronger regulations such as the European data protection law and stricter sanctions.

>> Two former prosecutors who held senior U.S. Justice Department roles have moved to Kaplan, Hecker & Fink, the latest hires by a boutique founded by veteran Big Law litigators. Marshall Miller, who was of counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Michael Ferrera, who was most recently co-chief of the terrorism and international narcotics unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, are both joining Kaplan Hecker.