Everyone knows the mantra – yes, we need tone at the top, but we also need tone in the middle and tone at the bottom. Every aspect of this statement, however, requires more work than everyone thinks. Tone at the top is not established by having the CEO create a video message, write a letter and/or communicate the company’s commitment to ethics and compliance. It...

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. – Groucho Marx Sometimes compliance practitioners miss the forest from the trees. They can get lost in the details of their compliance programs, focusing on less significant details and ignoring more important tasks. The FCPA Guidance, issued by the Justice Department and the SEC in November 2012,...

The compliance profession continues to rise in importance. Companies are paying more attention to corporate culture and devoting resources to enhance existing compliance operations. This approach is reinforced with each week as new enforcement actions are announced. Just like every other success story, the rise of compliance brings out dangerous “innovations,” which are promoted as the magic solution to compliance technology needs.  Compliance professionals have...

Sometimes compliance realities outpace enforcement and regulatory requirements. When it comes to FinCEN’s proposal to implement a beneficial ownership rule for financial institutions (see Here), global financial institutions do not need to worry about the outcome of the FinCEN regulations. Global financial institutions already have to know their (your) customer because of compliance obligations with sanctions and anti-corruption laws. In the anti-corruption context, a financial...

I often complain about compliance messaging. Compliance officers have to be careful to avoid becoming viewed as “nattering nabobs of negativism,” as former Vice President Spiro Agnew famously stated about the liberal media. Instead, compliance officers have to unite under the umbrella of positivism, and rely on a two-prong message — promote and protect. An effective ethics and compliance program promotes the positive aspects of...

There are many interdependent pieces of a compliance program; if one function fails, the effectiveness of a compliance program can be seriously threatened. The audit/compliance committee has a critical role – it has responsibility for monitoring and supervision of a compliance program. Specifically the audit/compliance committee frequently initiates and establishes a company’s compliance tone. If the issue is important to the audit/compliance committee, compliance will...

I was honored to appear on Tom Fox’s regular podcast series.  Tom and I discussed the trend in internal controls enforcement, following the series of postings I wrote (here, here, here and here). Here is the link to our Podcast — Here.  

How do you establish tone at the top when the CEO really does not care? What if the Chief Compliance Officer cannot get the CEO’s attention? CCOs face real challenges when the CCO does not have his or her star actor or actress to promote the company’s ethical culture. If you can imagine filming The Godfather without Marlon Brando, then you can imagine what a...

“Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.”  — Will Rogers ” Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”  — John F. Kennedy The compliance profession continues to evolve and grow.  More lawyers and law students are seeking knowledge and training in the field of ethics...

Character and personal force are the only investments that are worth anything. – Walt Whitman A company’s character includes avoiding the appearance of, or actual, conflicts of interest. Compliance professionals need to pay more attention to conflicts of interest. In some instances, companies have not even adopted conflict of interest compliance policies.  Some companies have a mere mention of the principle in their code of...