Webinar: Internal Investigations — Soup to Nuts March 11, 2014, 12 Noon EST SIGN UP HERE   More and more companies need to conduct internal investigations as an important strategy to protect the company against serious government investigations. Not all internal investigations have to be conducted in the same way. The steps needed to conduct an effective internal investigation will vary depending on the nature...

Some people are gluttons for punishment.  We all know people in our professional and personal lives who repeatedly end up in trouble.   Even when they escape some serious consequence or problem, they inevitably bring about more trouble. I have written about JP Morgan and its continuing compliance nightmare; its resounding compliance failures; and its unwillingness to acknowledge its own responsibility for much of its own...

If you want to know how well an ethics and compliance program is doing, the best indicator is to review the communications between the Chief Compliance Officer and the Board of Directors, usually the Audit Committee. There are four critical questions that need to be asked: 1.  How often does the CCO report to the Audit/Compliance Committee? 2.  Does the CCO report to the Board...

Target’s consumer data breach was massive in scope and impact – 70 million consumers had their payment information hacked/stolen, along with other personal information.  Federal and state regulators are now picking through the morass to assign blame, responsibility and extract penalties and promises of reforms and improvements. Recent press reports have revealed that Target’s senior management had been warned internally about vulnerabilities in its payment...

With the end of the Avon case fast approaching, the expected settlement of over $100 million includes some important lessons learned for companies in the middle of internal investigations and negotiations with the government. The most recent lesson learned for companies under investigation is to avoid public negotiations with the government.  It is always a no win proposition and typically results in a greater loss....

The Justice Department and the SEC continue the drumbeat encouraging companies to voluntarily disclose potential FCPA violations.  Of course, the reason for their position is obvious – they want to know about every violation, no matter what size and to what extent.  If I were still a prosecutor, I would say the same thing. However, there is a lot more nuance to the issue, especially...

The SEC knows that it has broad enforcement authority.  In the FCPA arena, the SEC has civil authority over bribes, but more importantly, enforcement authority over books and records and internal controls.  It is this latter concept – “internal controls” which can be stretched and used against companies and individuals in some pretty bizarre ways. Relying on the authority of an internal controls investigation, the...

The healthcare industry has been an innovative leader in developing compliance tools and strategies.  They have come by it honestly – prosecutors and HHS-OIG have been pounding on pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospices, and doctors for years. The industry has a target on its back and each year the government extracts more penalties, jail time and Corporate integrity Agreements from...

Life is filled with ups and downs.  Compliance officers know this and are familiar with riding the roller coaster.  Compliance “failures” are inevitable. If you look at any company’s internal investigation case mix, you will see a laundry list of compliance problems, most of which center around human resource issues.  That is to be expected. The internal investigation case mix is only the tip of...

Sometimes our experiences provide important lessons that we can apply in our current job. As a federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, criminologists were pushing the “broken windows” theory of law enforcement: that serious crimes were more likely to occur in areas where minor crimes (petty misdemeanors) were ignored or not enforced.  It is a theory that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani put into practice in...