Law enforcement focus on anti-money laundering appears to be increasing. While the last ten years has seen a marked increase in AML regulatory obligations, the new administration is likely to return to some of the more “traditional” AML enforcement programs, such as terrorist financing, organized and transnational money laundering, tax evasion and other areas. The regulatory focus of enforcement will continue on beneficial ownership, shell...

The Justice Department’s FCPA enforcement and remediation focus on supervisory personnel is an interesting development. On the one hand, DOJ has been slow to bring individual criminal enforcement actions for FCPA violations. At the same time, they are flirting with a potential new enforcement approach – a criminal prosecution for circumventing internal controls without proof of bribery. However, FCPA prosecutors appear to be gun-shy after...

People crave simple solutions to complex problems. No, this is not a political statement, nor do I intend to wade into politics. This statement applies across the board – to business, compliance, government, and other institutions.  We all want to understand difficult issues and to gain that understanding without the hard work that is required to learn a complex issue, consider alternatives, and develop possible...

Compliance professionals cannot do it alone. Of course, CCOs need compliance staff and the collaboration of business, human resources, legal, financial and audit, and related functions in order to succeed. I have made this point over and over (again and again). Along with human and functional resources, CCOs need to embrace technology and data analytics. I have written about the importance of technology to the...

The rise of the compliance profession has had a number of positive impacts on the corporate governance landscape. One of the most important results has been increased focus on corporate culture. Chief compliance officers recognize that they are the guardians of the company’s culture (assuming the company does not have a separate Chief Ethics Officer). Some companies have recognized the importance of ethical business decision-making...

Here is a profound grasp of the obvious – Lawyers can be difficult people. Some like to condemn the profession in its entirety (and carry with them a collection of lawyer jokes). As an attorney, I beg to differ. Many professions include and reward difficult people. For example, CEOs have the highest incidence of psychopathy among professionals. Lawyers are no different and expected to zealously...

Webinar: Antitrust Training: Avoiding Criminal Cartel Risks Tuesday, March 28, 2016 12 Noon – 12:30 CST Sign Up Here Free and fair competition in the marketplace benefits consumers.  But when organizations collude with their competitors, it inhibits the competitive process — and violates antitrust laws. So, how can you avoid criminal arrangements and interactions with your competitors? Join Michael Volkov, CEO of The Volkov Law...

We all know that a compliance program without business buy-in is, by definition, an ineffective compliance program. The level of business support ranges from “mouthing” support to full-fledged embrace and ownership of compliance program controls. By “mouthing” support, I am referring to business staff who say they understand compliance, use the right words reflecting an understanding of compliance issues, but they fail to attend to,...

A Chief Compliance Officer has a number of important relationships to attend to in the corporate governance landscape. A critical relationship needed to “operationalize” a compliance program is a partnership between a CCO and the Chief Financial Officer and its key constituents, including the Internal Auditor and Comptroller. Unfortunately, a recent survey (Here) revealed that only 37 percent of CFOs actively participate in their company’s...

An effective compliance program is built on internal coordination and relationships. Applying the Justice Department’s terminology, an effective compliance program is one that is operationalized. At first glance, you may think this is something new. It is not. The Justice Department’s adoption of the term “operationalized” is meant to distinguish between a compliance program that exists on paper versus a compliance program that is implemented...