William James used to preach the “will to believe”. For my part, I should wish to preach the “will to doubt”…. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. – Bertrand Russell Skeptical Essays, 1928  “Man’s greatest asset is the unsettled mind.” – Isaac Asimov In the coming years, the pressure on corporate...

The Justice Department and the SEC have been busy.  More enforcement actions are coming to a close — Avon, Weatherford, and others are likely to be resolved before the end of the year.  There is an inevitable fourth quarter push to close out enforcement actions and clear the plate. It is always interesting to see how the FCPA Paparazzi translates FCPA enforcement actions in its...

Compliance is becoming more and more specialized.  Whatever is the soup du jour, or current high-risk operation, becomes the focus of compliance education, marketing, and surveys.  After the passage of the PATRIOT Act in 2001, the focus was anti-money laundering compliance programs.  In the last few years, the focus has now turned to anti-corruption compliance. Compliance officers usually get dragged into this trend and focus...

It is important to understand one’s limitations in life.  In the world of compliance, CCOs need to be realistic when they start a new job with a new company.  It also means that a CCO has to be honest with himself or herself. Every person knows deep down their strengths and weaknesses.  CCOs know this as well.  Some CCOs (and people) have a “can do”...

Companies are always trying to do more with less.  Senior executives will spend hours designing policies and programs to stretch dollars, resources and reduce costs. Committees are established for such research projects, consultants are brought in and solutions are reviewed and eventually implemented. Senior managers could reduce the time, the expense and angst involved in this process by just applying common sense.  Companies waste inordinate...

My colleague Tom Fox is a fountain of wisdom on ethics and compliance issues.  If you know Tom and hear him speak, you know he has seen a lot of corporate compliance situations – good and bad.  With this perspective, it is always worth it to listen to Tom and heed his advice. Tom and I share a common perspective (or so I would like...

The recent announcement of SEC whistleblower awards is an important reminder on the need for companies to devote time and attention to proactive whistleblower policies and practices.  Every organization adopts the vanilla-language of responding to whistleblowers and prohibiting retaliation against whistleblowers. It takes guts for companies to move beyond these standard pronouncements and embrace proactive strategies for dealing with whistleblowers.  Interestingly, recent studies continue to...

Chief Compliance Officers have plenty of issues to focus on when it comes to anti-corruption compliance.  If you rank the risks, facilitation payments are not at the top of the list, especially if you have sales staff and third-party agents who regularly interact with foreign officials for business.  Even gifts, meals, entertainment and travel eclipses facilitation payments on the compliance radar screen. Part of the...

After the Department of Justice announced its declination of the Morgan Stanley case, the FCPA Paparazzi littered the Internet with recommendations of steps to take modeled on Morgan Stanley’s compliance program.  Companies embraced these principles and emulated Morgan Stanley’s compliance program.  Everyone wanted to have a “Morgan Stanley” compliance program. I do not mean to burst the FCPA Paparazzi’s balloons but the facts of Morgan...