Corruption, Crime & Compliance

Featured Articles:

5 Apr, 2016

Parent Company and Subsidiary Liability for FCPA Violations: Fighting the Disinformation Campaign

Akin to politics (to a smaller degree), there is a fair amount of disinformation, some call it bloviating, put out by the FCPA Paparazzi. Some of this disinformation is motivated by immature attempts to “market” legal services; other sources of disinformation carry a readily apparent bias, one way or the other, and usually are supported by self-citations to one’s own “scholarship” to prove their points....

General

3 Apr, 2016

The Demise of Valeant Pharmaceuticals: A Case Study in Rotten Culture and Business Ethics

Showing my age again, Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run included a hilarious scene when Woody’s parents wearing Groucho Marx glasses talk about their criminal son (Woody/Virgil Starkwell), his dad exclaimed “He’s rotten, he is a gangster.” See clip here. Well, the story of Valeant Pharmaceuticals is a familiar one of corporate greed and misconduct, based on a “rotten” tone at the top and...

General

1 Apr, 2016

Your Company’s Compliance Program is Finished – April Fools

Happy April Fool’s Day! Could you ever imagine coming to work one day and realizing that you have “finished” your ethics and compliance program? There is nothing left to do. You can go home. Ohhhh, if only it was so. We all know the truth – a compliance program is never finished, never completed and there is always something to do. This gets us back...

General

31 Mar, 2016

Honest Assessment of the CCO-CEO Relationship

One very accurate indicator of a compliance program is the relationship between the CEO and the Chief Compliance Officer. If a CCO is repeatedly making excuses for a CEO who does not devote enough time to compliance, you can rest assured that the compliance program is nowhere near effective. Let’s start with the basics. Almost 60 percent of CCOs now report directly to the CEO....

General

29 Mar, 2016

The Myth of the Rogue Employee

Humans by nature seek to avoid uncomfortable feelings, events and situations. When a company suffers misconduct, the same principle holds true. Corporate actors, defense lawyers and board members will always minimize the bad actors and the harm they caused. In response to a bribery scheme confined to a country, the company will immediately seek refuge in the myth of the rogue employee. By definition, the...

General

28 Mar, 2016

Novartis Coughs Up $25 Million to SEC for China FCPA Violations

Last week, the SEC announced another FCPA settlement involving the pharmaceutical industry for bribery in China. The SEC’s settlement filing represents yet another example of the pharmaceutical industry run amok in China, relying on targeted gifts, meals, entertainment and travel expenditures designed to increase sales of Novartis products in China. Novartis had to cough up $25 million. The Novartis enforcement action, however, provides an important...

General

27 Mar, 2016

A New “Wildy Effective” Book on Compliance from Kristy Grant-Hart

As the compliance profession grows, so to the need for valuable writing and scholarship, particularly from authors who themselves have specific compliance experience and offer practical solutions. Kristy Grant-Hart recently released a terrific contribution to the field – How to Be a Wildly Effective Compliance Officer. As an extra benefit, Joseph E. Murphy, a long-time leader in the compliance field, wrote the foreword to the...

General

25 Mar, 2016

New Free E-Book: A Return to Common Sense: The Justice Department’s Latest Attempts to Deter Corporate Criminals

I am pleased to announce the release by Corporate Compliance Insights of my new e-book: A Return to Common Sense: The Justice Department’s Latest Attempts to Deter Corporate Crime. You can download the book here. With the release of the Yates Memorandum, and the readjustment of FCPA prosecution priorities and strategies, the Department of Justice is in the throes of a significant policy change in...

General

23 Mar, 2016

The Telltale Sign of Corporate Culture: Treatment of Whistleblowers

There are many important predictors of corporate culture. Everyone laments the difficult in measuring a company’s culture. There are a few issues, however, that may be inconvertible as a predictor of a corporate culture. How does a company react to a whistleblower? I am sure everyone is saying to themselves – well, we do not have that problem, we are committed to fair treatment of...

General

23 Mar, 2016

Corporate Directors in the Enforcement Cross-Hairs

We have all been reading (over and over) about the Yates Memorandum and the renewed focus on individual culpability. As I have said (over and over), the proof will be in the results – if we see an increased number of criminal cases against individuals. Whether this new aggressive approach will extend to senior executives and even corporate board members will be a matter of...