Welcome to Compliance Hot Spots, our snapshot on white-collar, regulatory and compliance news and trends. On tap this week: Familiar law firms dominate as the pandemic fuels a federal lobbying uptick. Proposed legislation would give USDA a seat at the CFIUS table. The U.S. Justice Department is warning about covid-19 fraud. Scroll down for major headlines, Who Got the Work and all the notable moves.

We hope you, colleagues, family and friends are staying safe and healthy. Thanks for reading, and we'd love your feedback. Contact C. Ryan Barber in Washington at [email protected] and at 202-828-0315. Follow @cryanbarber.

Familiar Law Firms Dominate as Pandemic Fuels Federal Lobbying Uptick

While plenty of industries are reeling due to COVID-19, federal disclosures for the first quarter of 2020 confirm that Capitol Hill lobbying isn't one of them.

With the exception of Squire Patton Boggs, Big Law lobbying practices that cracked the top 10 by revenue last quarter each saw an uptick from the same period last year. For the two revenue leaders, the year-over-year gains were substantial: 31% for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which pulled in $12.6 million, and 25% for Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck, with $11.5 million.

"There was some conventional wisdom coming out from last fall that suggested during a presidential election year, everything would seize up," said Brownstein partner Marc Lampkin, who leads the firm's Washington, D.C., office. "Then COVID-19 comes along and deepens the attention and focus on policy makers. It certainly created an opportunity for lobbying firms and practitioners."

Brownstein, which has been gaining ground against Akin in the lobbying race, was the revenue leader in the second quarter last year and again in the fourth quarter, though Akin led 2019 revenues overall for the seventh year in a row. The two firms have occupied the top of the rankings since 2015, when Brownstein supplanted Squire Patton Boggs at No. 2. —Patrick Smith

Read more at the NLJ. And Politico has more here.

Proposed Legislation Would Give USDA Seat on CFIUS Panel

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its global supply chain disruptions, two members of Congress are proposing legislation that would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture a seat on the interagency panel chaired by the U.S. Treasury Department that reviews foreign mergers and acquisitions of U.S. companies for national security risks.

Congressman Frank Lucas,(R.-OK) and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-OH)have introduced the Agricultural Security Risk Review Act, which would formally place the USDA Secretary as a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, with departments including Commerce, Homeland Security and the Defense Department among others.

Lucas said in a recent statement: "I've always known that food security is a vital part of our national security but in the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been able to see that firsthand. I believe that foreign investment in our nation's food supply chain deserves increased scrutiny and that's why I am introducing this important piece of legislation today."

"The safety and resilience of America's food supply is critical to feeding our population, and therefore the security of our nation," said Rep. Fudge in the same statement.

Mario Mancuso, leader of the international trade and national security practice at Kirkland & Ellis said in an email: "The new bill is also a function of the reality of a post-COVID world—so the timing is not as random as it may seem. While COVID is a natural phenomenon, it has exposed the fragility of the food supply system. Today, it may be hard to get chicken breasts at the grocery because of illness at processing plants. Tomorrow, who knows? Enter CFIUS."

China's WH Group Ltd, for example, purchased Smithfield Foods America's largest pork producer for $4.7 billion in 2014 and shifted U.S. processing operations in Virginia to direct meat to China, which produced half the world's pork before swine fever decimated the industry, according to a Reuters report in November. —MP McQueen

Who Got the Work

>> Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Manisha Sheth is representing a former executive at the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. who alleges he was wrongly fired and retaliated against after he reported his supervisor's potentially illegal acts to the bank's in-house counsel. John "Jack" Yang, former head of the Americas for the bank's Alcentra NY unit, filed suit in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, my colleague Sue Reisinger reports at Law.com. An Alcentra spokesman said: "We will not comment on any litigation beyond stating that we think the allegations are baseless and without merit."

>> Lawyers from Ballard Spahr—including Christopher Hatfield, Jeremy Rosenblum and Sarah Reise—are representing Payday Loans LLC in a new suit in Washington against the U.S. Small Business Administration. The complaint claims the SBA unfairly denied the company a loan for $644,000 under the Paycheck Protection Program.

>> Hogan Lovells has signed a new contract to advocate for the embassy of Japan, according to disclosures under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The contract, running through March 31, 2021, calls for a $16,000 monthly payment from the embassy. Hogan Lovells said it "represents the foreign principal on general diplomatic representation, laws, regulations, policies, proposed congressional measures, treaties and other international agreements, international trade policy and actions by the US Congress, Executive Branch, US Government agencies and certain state and local governments."

>> Lawyers from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld rebuffed an effort from U.S. Senate Democrats to obtain new information from Deutsche Bank about Donald Trump's financial dealings, Reuters reports. "We hope that you will understand Deutsche Bank's need to respect the legal, as well as contractual, boundaries that exist with respect to such confidential information," the firm said in a letter.

Compliance Reading Corner

Covid-19

Attorney General William Barr Tells Prosecutors to be on Watch for 'Overbearing' Coronavirus Measures. "If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court," Barr wrote in the memo. [CNN]

House Creates New Select Coronavirus Oversight Committee Over GOP Objections. "It will be laser-focused on ensuring that taxpayer money goes to workers paychecks and benefits and it will ensure that the federal response is based on the best possible science and guided by health experts—and that the money invested is not being exploited by profiteers and price gougers," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. [Politico]

Justice Dept. Anticipates Coronavirus Stimulus Will Be a Major Target for Fraud. "The Justice Department is girding for a possible raft of fraud stemming from the trillions of dollars in government aid being doled out to stem the economic impact of coronavirus—training federal prosecutors across the country on what to look for and deploying data analytics tools to detect wrongdoing early, officials said." [The Washington Post]

Treasury Says Coronavirus Impact on Compliance Could Be a Mitigating Factor in Sanctions Cases. "The U.S. Treasury Department said it would weigh the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on companies' ability to comply with sanctions as it evaluates possible enforcement actions. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces U.S. trade and economic sanctions, issued a notice this week acknowledging that some companies may need to temporarily reassign sanctions compliance resources if they face technical or personnel challenges due to the pandemic." [WSJ]

SBA Warns Big Companies on Seeking Small Business Loans After Backlash. "The Trump administration on Thursday warned large, publicly traded companies to think twice before applying for small business rescue loans amid a growing furor over Wall Street-backed firms receiving the money. In an updated document for the Paycheck Protection Program, the Small Business Administration said all borrowers should consider the certification they must make when applying for loans that '[c]urrent economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the applicant.'" [Politico]

Compliance

How Boeing Is Combining Its Legal and Compliance Departments. The recently announced changes include naming general counsel Brett Gerry as chief legal officer and executive vice president of global compliance. Gerry, who previously served as president of Boeing Japan, has been general counsel for about a year, my colleague Sue Reisinger reports. [Law.com]

Tech Tools Can Help Firms Probe Misconduct During Pandemic, Compliance Veteran Says. "Companies that have invested in the right technology may have an advantage when it comes to investigating potential misconduct by employees while coronavirus-related travel restrictions remain in place, according to corporate compliance veteran Michael Ward." [WSJ]

Antibribery Compliance Has to Continue, Officials Say. "Officials in charge of enforcing a U.S. antibribery law predicted that the novel coronavirus would create incentives for corruption and urged companies to keep their guards up. 'Reporting and detecting misconduct continue to be very important things for companies to do,' said David Fuhr, an assistant chief of the U.S. Justice Department's anti-foreign-bribery unit. Prosecutors are trying to be reasonable given the conditions companies face as a result of the pandemic, but 'compliance has to continue,' he said." [WSJ]

SBA to Face Big Challenges Ensuring Coronavirus Loans Aren't Misspent. "The SBA normally counts on lenders to audit the small-business loans it backs. But to ensure the new Paycheck Protection Program loans reached recipients quickly, Congress largely absolved the banks of the time-consuming responsibility of checking for fraud or egregious errors, so long as borrowers provided necessary documentation." [WSJ]

Courts and cases

DC Circuit Reminds Everyone the DC Court of Appeals Is Not the Same Court. The federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled against a former compliance officer who had initially filed his SEC challenge in the similarly named D.C. Court of Appeals, the highest local court in the District of Columbia. [NLJ]

Native American Tribes Say They're At Risk Of Losing Out On Potentially Millions Of Coronavirus Stimulus Dollars. "Dozens of Native American tribal governments have raced to court in the past week to try to stop the Treasury Department from allowing for-profit Native corporations to access a special pool of $8 billion in federal coronavirus relief money." [BuzzFeed News]

Judge Warns Facebook As He Approves Record $5B FTC Fine. "These allegations, and the briefs of some amici, call into question the adequacy of laws governing how technology companies that collect and monetize Americans' personal information must treat that information," U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly wrote, according to a report from my colleague Jacqueline Thomsen. [NLJ]

Virginia Law Professor Pierre-Hugues Verdier on U.S. Prosecution of Global Banks. "The book examines the U.S. enforcement campaign against global banks across four areas—benchmark manipulation, tax evasion, sanctions violations, and sovereign debt. Verdier shows that U.S. prosecutors have unilaterally carved out a new role as global bank regulators, heralding a fundamental shift in how international finance is overseen." [Corporate Crime Reporter]

Notable Moves & Announcements

>> Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz has brought on Leo Strine Jr. (above), the former chief justice of Delaware's influential business court. Strine will advise clients on mergers, litigation and other matters. "Though quick to chide corporate boards that stepped out of bounds—and hand down sometimes expensive punishments—Mr. Strine mostly defended the rights of chief executives to manage and sell their companies without being second-guessed," WSJ reports. My colleague David Bario has more here at Law.com.

>> Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired Michael Moiseyev, a former assistant director in the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of competition, as a partner. At the FTC, Moiseyev oversaw reviews of some of the largest mergers in the tech, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. "Mike is one of the most well-known, respected and successful antitrust officials in the country, and we are incredibly pleased that he has chosen to join Weil," said executive partner Barry Wolf. "His government experience, working with a number of our antitrust lawyers for many years, makes him an exceptionally good fit for the firm."

>> "The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a panel of two dozen federal inspectors general charged with coordinating work to investigate the coronavirus relief effort, named Robert Westbrooks, a veteran inspector general, as its executive director on Monday," Politico reports.