Balt and TradeStation: Lessons for the Compliance Professional

Balt and TradeStation: Lessons for the Compliance Professional

From Compliance into the Weeds by Tom Fox

March 25, 2026 · 27 min · Episode 459

About this episode

Tom Fox and Matt Kelly discuss compliance lessons from the declination awarded to Balt SAS and the OFAC enforcement action involving TradeStation.

The award-winning Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast that takes a deep dive into a compliance-related topic, literally going into the weeds to explore it more fully. Looking for some hard-hitting insights on compliance? Look no further than Compliance into the Weeds! In this episode of Compliance into the Weeds, Tom Fox and Matt Kelly look at the Declination awarded to Balt SAS and the OFAC enforcement action involving TradeStation. First, they review a Corporate Enforcement Policy declination for French medical-equipment company BAL SAS and the company’s U.S. subsidiary after self-disclosing, cooperating and remediating misconduct involving a U.S. subsidiary executive and a Belgian consultant allegedly funneling about $600,000 in bribes to a French public hospital official using sham consulting agreements, invoices, and poor documentation; BAL disgorged about $1.21 million in profit on roughly $1.68 million in revenue and disclosed while its internal investigation was still ongoing, raising timing and high-margin red-flag issues. Second, they cover OFAC’s $1.1 million settlement with TradeStation for accidentally disabling sanctions-screening controls for…

People in this episode

Host: Tom Fox

Guest: Matt Kelly

Topics covered

  • compliance
  • enforcement actions
  • corporate governance

Keywords

  • FCPA
  • sanctions
  • self-disclosure
  • bribery
  • monitoring

Mentioned in this episode

Products: TradeStation

Books & works: Compliance into the Weeds, a Communicator Award

Places: U.S., Iran, Syria, Crimea, France

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