Certainly very concerning. Two possible mitigations though:
Any finding of negligence would only apply to those with duties or oversight responsibilities relating to operations. It’s not every employee or volunteer’s responsibility to be a compliance detective for the entire organization.
It’s plausible that people made some due dilligence efforts that were unsuccessful because they were fed false information and/or relied on corrupt experts (like “Attorney-1” in the second interim trustee report). E.g., if they were told by Legal that this had been signed off on and that it was necessary for tax reasons, it’s hard to criticize a non-lawyer too much for accepting that. Or more simply, they could have been told that all grants were made out of various internal accounts containing only corporate monies (again, with some tax-related justification that donating non-US profits through a US charity would be disadvantageous).
Seems pretty bad, no?
Certainly very concerning. Two possible mitigations though:
Any finding of negligence would only apply to those with duties or oversight responsibilities relating to operations. It’s not every employee or volunteer’s responsibility to be a compliance detective for the entire organization.
It’s plausible that people made some due dilligence efforts that were unsuccessful because they were fed false information and/or relied on corrupt experts (like “Attorney-1” in the second interim trustee report). E.g., if they were told by Legal that this had been signed off on and that it was necessary for tax reasons, it’s hard to criticize a non-lawyer too much for accepting that. Or more simply, they could have been told that all grants were made out of various internal accounts containing only corporate monies (again, with some tax-related justification that donating non-US profits through a US charity would be disadvantageous).