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October 14, 2019

Using illumis data, POLITICO uncovers Juul's massive lobbying campaign

Please Note: Since this article was published, Vigilant has rebranded as illumis. The post below has been updated to reflect this change:

POLITICO recently dug into the lobbying efforts of Juul Labs with the help of public records data compiled by illumis.

Juul Labs, according to POLITICO, “has spent millions of dollars on lobbying, hired high-profile Trump administration officials, and blanketed Washington with ads touting its efforts against underage vaping.”

Leveraging illumis’ public data aggregation, POLITICO revealed Juul hired more than two dozen lobbyists—including former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and former Democratic Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley—to lobby federal and state officials on behalf of the e-cigarette company:

Juul has hired lobbyists in at least 38 other states as well as New York City, Chicago and the District of Columbia, according to data compiled for POLITICO by [illumis], a company that aggregates public records data.

illumis, which was named the winner of the GEN Startups for News competition in 2018, is a public data monitoring platform that enables real-time search and monitoring across of public data sets. We’ve made research into lobby records—like the ones highlighted in POLITICO—as easy and as fast as possible. In one simple search, illumis provides the data from federal lobbying registrations (including the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and Department of Justice FARA); state-level lobbyist databases from all 50 states and D.C.; and lobbying registrations in major cities and counties across the country.

With illumis, searching all of these lobbying databases takes only a few seconds, and the results represent the most recent available information because illumis Search updates in real time. We’ve also created illumis Alerts to help journalists and other research teams receive notifications whenever new filings post.

Alongside lobbying records, illumis aggregates public data from thousands of other sources, including business registrations and licenses, campaign finance data, court records, data breaches, and more. You can request a trial here.
ComplySci and illumis: Two regulatory compliance solutions joining together to benefit clients’ regulatory needs

In November of 2021, ComplySci announced the acquisition of illumis, a premier data aggregator and technology provider whose solutions are used by financial services firms to identify and mitigate risk from employee political contributions. While the initial acquisition saw the firms operating as two independent organizations, we are thrilled to announce the merging of the illumis and ComplySci brands. With this initiative, we aim to arm our clients with a more comprehensive solution to mitigating compliance risk, which includes the increased risk associated with employee political contributions.

Why real-time data is essential to helping your investment firm avoid violating pay-to-play regulations, SEC rule 206(4)-5

Political contributions made by firm employees pose a significant threat to investment advisory firms. And even firms with the best compliance teams can be at risk of violating pay-to-play regulations, like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) rule 206(4)-5, given the complexity of the rules and the myriad of regulations to which firms must comply.

Because of this, investment firms must arm themselves with the access to and support of real-time data, which can help identify potential violations and anomalies in the political donation process.

By leveraging real-time data, investment firms can quickly detect suspicious or unauthorized activities and take prompt action to prevent pay-to-play violations.

Beyond SEC Rule 206(4)-5: A look at state and local political contributions compliance regulations

SEC Rule 206(4)-5 is arguably the most well known regulation regarding political contributions compliance or pay-to-play compliance. However, it certainly isn’t the only regulation to which firms must comply.

In fact, beyond federal regulations, firms which take part in government contracted work must contend with numerous and varied state and local regulations as well. Such regulations present unique challenges because of the various requirements within each, which should they be neglected, can cause significant financial and reputational damage.