November 17, 2008
Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge Speakers:
Geoffrey Etherington
Michael Gass, a partner in our Boston office, and Geoffrey Etherington, a partner in our New York office, presented "Doing Insurance Business Internationally: Avoiding Sanctions" on November 17, 2008 to the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers.
This seminar focused on the FCPA and the US and EU/UK sanctions regimes and considered (1) why the FCPA is relevant to the insurance industry and how the industry can act now to avoid problems in the future; and (2) the potential for the US and EU/UK sanctions regulations to impact upon insurance business.
Seminar Program
FCPA
- Overview of the FCPA
- Why brokers and underwriting agents should pay attention to the FCPA?
- Why should insurers pay attention to the FCPA?
- D&O insurance has a significant role to play
- Measures that can be taken to avoid falling foul of the FCPA
US and UK sanctions regime
- US sanction regime including a discussion on the OFAC regulations, the OFAC list of "specially designated nationals" or SDNs, the country specific sanction regimes administered by OFAC and penalties for breach of OFAC.
- EU/UK sanctions regimes
- Interplay between US and EU/UK sanction regimes
- What are the issues for insurers? This will include a discussion on the impact of OFAC on US citizens handling transactions with sanctioned countries or SDNs, including underwriters and claims personnel.
- Restrictions on US retrocessionaires involved in quota shares that might involve OFAC sanctioned countries or SDNs.
- Possible approaches to ameliorate the impact: This will include a discussion on internal controls to wall-off US citizens from OFAC prohibited transactions and OFAC compliance.