In this update episode of Corruption, Crime and Compliance, Michael Volkov speaks with Erica Hanichak of the FACT Coalition and Frank Russo of Modern Fortis about the current fight over the Corporate Transparency Act, the 2021 law requiring companies to report their beneficial owners to a secure Treasury Department database in order to close off the U.S.’s longstanding status as an easy jurisdiction for setting...
A clear pattern has emerged in Justice Department corporate enforcement over the past several months, and it is worth compliance officers and general counsel taking notice: companies are being charged far less often, even in cases where prosecutors believed executives or managers were personally involved in the underlying wrongdoing, and that reduced corporate exposure has not been matched by a corresponding increase in individual prosecutions....
Michael Volkov examines a troubling backslide in corporate governance: the quiet movement of chief compliance officers back under the general counsel after years of progress toward direct CEO reporting lines. Michael explains why the CCO’s reporting structure is the single clearest signal a company sends about the value it places on compliance — shaping whether compliance influences business strategy at the design stage or is...
In the compliance world, no news is not good news. Let me ask you a question every CCO should be asking right now: Are your employees actually reporting and using your hotline to report legitimate concerns? Too many compliance officers look at a quiet hotline and breathe a sigh of relief. No calls, no complaints. Must mean everything’s fine. I’m here to tell you that’s...
In my last post, I made the affirmative case for CCO empowerment — a direct reporting line to the CEO and a dotted line to the audit committee. Today I want to address the disturbing counter-trend: companies moving compliance back under the general counsel, often justified as cost discipline or organizational simplification. Make no mistake about what this movement represents. It is a retreat from...
In this update episode of Corruption, Crime and Compliance, Michael Volkov speaks with Erica Hanichak of the FACT Coalition and Frank Russo of Modern Fortis about the current fight over the Corporate Transparency Act, the 2021 law requiring companies to report their beneficial owners to a secure Treasury Department database in order to close off the U.S.’s longstanding status as an easy jurisdiction for setting...
A clear pattern has emerged in Justice Department corporate enforcement over the past several months, and it is worth compliance officers and general counsel taking notice: companies are being charged far less often, even in cases where prosecutors believed executives or managers were personally involved in the underlying wrongdoing, and that reduced corporate exposure has not been matched by a corresponding increase in individual prosecutions....
Michael Volkov examines a troubling backslide in corporate governance: the quiet movement of chief compliance officers back under the general counsel after years of progress toward direct CEO reporting lines. Michael explains why the CCO’s reporting structure is the single clearest signal a company sends about the value it places on compliance — shaping whether compliance influences business strategy at the design stage or is...
In the compliance world, no news is not good news. Let me ask you a question every CCO should be asking right now: Are your employees actually reporting and using your hotline to report legitimate concerns? Too many compliance officers look at a quiet hotline and breathe a sigh of relief. No calls, no complaints. Must mean everything’s fine. I’m here to tell you that’s...
In my last post, I made the affirmative case for CCO empowerment — a direct reporting line to the CEO and a dotted line to the audit committee. Today I want to address the disturbing counter-trend: companies moving compliance back under the general counsel, often justified as cost discipline or organizational simplification. Make no mistake about what this movement represents. It is a retreat from...
Parts 1 and 2 of this series covered the terms of The Scoular Company’s deferred prosecution agreement and the mechanics of the bribery scheme itself, a six-year pattern of $2,000 payments per train, dressed up as reinspection fees, paid through customs brokers to keep contaminated agricultural shipments moving across the U.S.-Mexico border. In this final installment, we draw out the practical lessons for compliance officers,...
In Part 1 of this series, we outlined the terms of The Scoular Company’s deferred prosecution agreement and how DOJ applied its Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy to the case. In Part 2, we go deeper into the facts themselves, because the mechanics of this scheme, and the specific control gaps that allowed it to run for six years, are exactly the kind of...
The Justice Department’s foreign bribery resolution with The Scoular Company, an Omaha, Nebraska-based agricultural supply chain company, is one of the more unusual FCPA cases in recent memory. It did not arise from a company chasing a government contract or a licensing decision abroad. It arose from routine cross-border logistics, corn and other agricultural shipments moving from the United States into Mexico, and a bribery...
Michael Volkov examines how artificial intelligence is transforming internal investigations — and what the Justice Department now expects from companies navigating this new landscape. Michael breaks down DOJ’s updated Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, which directs prosecutors to scrutinize how companies assess AI risks, whether compliance functions have adequate access to data and analytics resources, and what controls prevent the reckless misuse of new technologies....
Every so often, corporate governance debates that we thought were settled come roaring back. The reporting line for the chief compliance officer is one of them. For years, the trend line pointed in the right direction — more companies elevating the CCO to report directly to the CEO, with independent access to the board. Lately, I am seeing troubling signs of backsliding, with companies quietly...
