Lacey Act Compliance Update: Lessons from the DOJ-Young Living Settlement

International Wood Products Association (IWPA) and lawyers from IWPA Associate Member Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer discussed recent Lacey Act enforcement actions that implicated the US wood importing industry, focusing on the recent guilty plea of Young Living Essential Oils, L.C., for importing into the United States rosewood oil and spikenard oil in violation of the Lacey Act and Endangered Species Act.

The presentation discussed the Justice Department's criminal charges against Young Living in the context of other recent US Government enforcement actions. The speakers also analyzed the terms of Young Living's compliance plan and compared it with the compliance plan agreed to by Lumber Liquidators in 2015, and discussed the implications of the settlement for wood industry compliance plans.