As a chief compliance officer, it is important to consider the mindset of a criminal. Not to complete tasks and accomplish your objectives. Instead, it is important to understand the criminal mind, what makes them tick and why they engage in criminal behavior. More specifically, when putting together a compliance program, a CCO should consider why an employee would steal, commit bribery or engage in...

Lauren Connell, Managing Associate at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for a posting on data privacy and security. Lauren can be reached at [email protected]. The terms “Data Privacy and Security” are being thrown around a lot lately. Just recently, England’s health services and medical facilities were shut-down and the target of a ransom note (demanding, of course, payment in bitcoin) to access blocked files....

Like any other profession, the compliance profession is not immune to bad apples. Lawyers know the law but have been criminally prosecuted for breaking the law. The same goes for compliance professionals. If the compliance profession wants to build credibility, it has to adopt professional standards and it has to accept when a bad apple is appropriately punished. Instead of claiming that prosecuting CCOs will cause...

Compliance professionals are riding high. They are the darlings of the corporate governance world, commanding higher salaries, C-Suite positions with access to senior leadership and the board, and an empowered position within major, multinational companies. But there are storm clouds on the horizon. In fact, these storm clouds are inevitable – it is just a matter of when and where they will arrive. What do...

We all know the scenario. A corporate scandal breaks, heads will roll and criminal investigators have invaded a company to investigate and prosecute the CEO, senior executives and others. It is a toxic environment when this occurs, and not something you ever want to experience, especially as a legal and/or compliance professional. People can become dangerous when they feel threatened. Corporate leaders, with egos and...

Anti-money laundering professionals are in for a rude awakening. Know Your Customer or KYC requirements are currently kicking up a notch, and will be even more dramatic when the new FinCEN beneficial ownership regulations become effective in 2018. Financial regulators have become much more sophisticated since the financial crash, and the industry should expect even greater regulatory demands. As financial scandals continue to pop up...

No matter what, I am an optimist. A pessimist’s worldview and lifestyle is really unattractive. I would always rather see the glass as half full. Too many in the professional world have confused negative perspectives and predictions as a way to demonstrate their own expertise. It is an unfortunate practice in today’s professional world that negativity has replaced unbiased expertise. Pessimists always argue that if...

Chief compliance officers and internal auditors are natural friends and allies. In the corporate governance world, they share many common interests. The natural partnership between compliance and audit reflects their substantive overlap of responsibilities. Internal auditors are guardians of a company’s internal controls, and ever since Sarbanes-Oxley, they have even greater responsibility for the accuracy of a company’s financial reporting system. A compliance program is...

When speaking to clients or potential clients, the question of risk of enforcement is the moose on the table. Sometimes, the question gets asked and other times, the subject is never discussed. To be fair, it is not an easy question to answer because of the variables. When a company has to analyze whether to seek the benefits of the FCPA Pilot Program and agree...

A CCO never feels like he or she has caught up on compliance program requirements. As soon as one new best practice is identified, a CCO blinks for a moment and then there is a new best practice for them to consider. In the training area, we have seen a rapid change over the last ten years. Years ago, compliance training was a check-the-box exercise...