Welcome to Compliance Hot Spots, our snapshot on white-collar, regulatory and compliance news and trends. More than 2,000 former DOJ lawyers, across administrations, are raising questions about DOJ's leadership, and Wachtell offers its views about what to watch in 2020. Scroll down for Who Got the Work, major headlines and a roundup of notable moves.

Tips, feedback and general thoughts on your practices are always appreciated. Contact C. Ryan Barber in Washington at [email protected] and 202-828-0315. Follow him on Twitter @cryanbarber. Contact Mike Scarcella at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Mikescarcella. Thanks for reading!

2,000 Ex-DOJ Lawyers Call on Barr to Resign

The Justice Department leadership's extraordinary intervention in the Roger Stone prosecution in Washington has turned the case into a flashpoint, as U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other leaders face broad condemnation for undercutting career prosecutors, inviting questions about whether a politicized Justice Department has bowed to White House pressure to help a friend of the president's.

For current and former colleagues, the resignation of veteran prosecutor Jonathan Kravis was a somber end to Kravis's prosecutorial career, a tenure that included a stint at Justice Department headquarters. At the U.S. attorney's office, Kravis had been on prosecution teams involved in cases brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III's office. Three other prosecutors, Adam Jed, Aaron Zelinsky and Michael Marando, withdrew their appearances in the Stone case.

More than 2,000 former U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and high-level officials, across presidential administrations, on Sunday called on Barr to resign. "Mr. Barr's actions in doing the President's personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice's reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign," the former DOJ lawyers said.

Harvard Law's Jack Goldsmith argued Monday against Barr stepping down. "Despite his mistakes, Barr clearly understands the importance of the appearance as well as the reality of even-handed justice, and very few people who are qualified to be attorney general have the stature to stand up to President Trump the way that Barr did last week," Goldsmith wrote at The Dispatch. "If Barr resigns, Trump can appoint an 'acting' replacement who will surely be more compliant."

Stone is set to be sentenced on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Barr has called the original sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years excessive, and ultimately U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson will have the final say.

Wachtell's 2020 Predictions

Lawyers from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz—including partners John Savarese, Wayne Carlin and David Anders—recently offered their take on white-collar and regulatory enforcement trends from 2019 and what to watch in 2020. Here are some highlights:

>> "The main takeaway from white-collar and regulatory enforcement activity in 2019, which we believe will remain true through 2020, is that both the DOJ and SEC have become more transparent about the requirements for receiving corporate cooperation credit."

>> "State attorneys general likewise remain very active across a broad range of subject matter areas—from investigations prompted by the opioid crisis, to attempts to recover costs associated with climate change, concerns about vaping and youth addiction, environmental law enforcement, and data privacy. These investigations, as we also discuss, can prove challenging for companies because law-enforcement priorities, settlement opportunities and political objectives can vary widely from state to state."

>> "While the overall scale of criminal fines and penalties imposed by DOJ in 2019 has dropped from the peak years following the 2008-09 financial crisis and the ensuing massive investigations of financial institutions, there is no question that white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement remains active and robust."

Who Got the Work

>> Lawyers from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer have inked a $330,000 contract with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea for advocacy, outreach and general legal services, according to new filings at the U.S. Justice Department. "The registrant will engage in political activities on behalf of the foreign principal with respect to advocacy and outreach efforts, including meetings with U.S. government officials," Arnold & Porter said. The contract is effective February 1, 2020, through December 31, 2020. J. David Park in Washington, co-head of Arnold & Porter's international trade group, is lead counsel.

>> The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday recommended Mark Filip, a Kirkland & Ellis partner and former deputy attorney general, to monitor Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster's compliance with the terms of a decade-old agreement that allowed the concert giant and ticketing service company to merge. A Washington federal trial judge late Tuesday approved Flilip's appointment.

>> Boies Schiller Flexner partner Matthew Schwartz is a defense lawyer for Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater. "The Justice Department is in the late stages of deciding whether to charge businessman and Trump ally Erik Prince in an investigation into whether he lied to Congress in its Russia probe and violated U.S. export laws in his business dealings overseas, according to people familiar with the matter," The Wall Street Journal reports.

>> Florida-based private real estate firm EquiAlt LLC, its CEO Brian Davison and its Managing Director Barry Rybicki are the targets of a new SEC emergency enforcement action. EquiAlt and Davison are represented by Jessica Masella and Jonathan Haray of DLA Piper. Rybicki is represented by Stephen Cohen of Sidley Austin.

>> Former U.S. Rep. Robert Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican, has registered to lobby for the first time since leaving office. Goodlatte said in a disclosure he was advocating on intelligence community surveillance for Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability Inc. More from Politico: "Goodlatte said he is lobbying Congress and the Trump administration on behalf of the nonprofit on three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act authorizing government surveillance programs set to expire in March."

Compliance Reading Corner

>> Trump's Enforcer: Meet the Man Who Holds Hollywood and Silicon Valley's Future in His Hands. "Although regulators haven't made a splashy move like attempting to break up Facebook, they have been investigating tech companies since July, and [Makan] Delrahim (above) has in recent weeks been privately telling interested observers to expect a criminal antitrust case in Silicon Valley sometime in the next few months." [The Hollywood Reporter]

>> Why Are Amazon and Google in Washongton's Firing Line? One Answer Is Ken Glueck. "Mr. Glueck isn't a consumer advocate. He is Oracle Corp.'s top Washington lobbyist—and a major force behind the increased government scrutiny of leading technology companies. Mr. Glueck has prodded federal antitrust regulators to investigate whether Google is violating competition laws." [WSJ]

>> US Judge Slams CFTC Over Market Manipulation Settlement. "A US judge lambasted the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for "egregious misconduct" as he handed a partial victory to Kraft Heinz and Mondelez, food companies who have been battling the regulator over alleged manipulation of wheat markets." [Financial Times]

>> Final CFIUS Rules for Real Estate Transactions. "Real estate investors and their counsel who were worried about the slew of new rules for foreign investment in real estate in the United States may be relieved that the final regulations, which take effect on Feb.13, came in more narrowly drafted than some had feared." [Law.com]

>> How the Courts Could Thwart a Silicon Valley Crackdown. "Washington regulators tightened their focus on the tech industry's biggest players Tuesday—but a judge showed how big a fight the feds may have on their hands." [Politico]

>> FTC Expands Antitrust Investigation Into Big Tech. "Federal regulators opened a new front in their investigation of big tech companies, seeking to determine whether the industry's giants acquired smaller rivals in ways that harmed competition, hurt consumers and evaded regulatory scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday ordered Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google owner Alphabet Inc. to provide detailed information about their acquisitions of fledgling firms over the past 10 years." [WSJ]

>> SEC Seeks to Improve Speed, Quality of Stock Data Available to Public. "Federal regulators launched a new effort to overhaul the plumbing of the U.S. equity markets with a measure to improve stock-price data available to the public and reduce the informational advantage enjoyed by some professional traders. A rule proposed late Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission aims to increase competition in the system that stock exchanges use to distribute market data via public feeds. Those feeds are slower and contain less information than proprietary streams that exchanges sell directly to higher-paying customers." [WSJ]

>> Huawei Chief Legal Officers Faces New Legal Challenge. Song Liuping's job isn't getting any easier. Days after Song, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.'s chief legal officer, accused rival Verizon Communications Inc. of patent infringement, the U.S. government announced new criminal charges against the Chinese telecom giant. [Law.com]

Notable Moves & More

• Seyfarth Shaw is expanding its securities litigation team in New York with a three-partner team from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer led by Vincent Sama, who will co-chair the firm's national commercial and securities litigation practice. Sama joined the firm with fellow partners Catherine Schumacher and Daphne Morduchowitz.

• Miller & Martin has added former federal prosecutor Lynsey Barron as a member in its Atlanta office. Barron spent more than four years at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. She joined Miller & Martin's white-collar defense practice and its data privacy and cybersecurity team.

• Barnes & Thornburg has added Michelle Bradford as litigation partner in Washington. Bradford, who earlier was a shareholder at Murphy & McGonigle and an associate at Jones Day, was an AUSA in the District of Columbia from 2006 to 2018.

• King & Spalding said Rick Vacura and Steve Cave have joined the firm as partners in its Special Matters and Government Investigations team. Vacura and Cave join from Morrison & Foerster, and McKinsey & Company, respectively.

• Foley & Lardner has hired Thomas Krysa, a longtime former SEC enforcement attorney, who arrives from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Krysa will be a partner in Foley's litigation department in Denver.

• Alston & Bird has rehired former federal prosecutor Joseph Burby, who joins the firm as partner in Atlanta. Burby arrives from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, where he was a partner for 13 years.

• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman has brought on David Oliwenstein, formerly senior counsel at the Securities & Exchange Commission, as a litigation counsel in New York.