Compliance officers are a confident bunch.  Yes, they can worry like all the rest of us, but in the end, they have faith that they can accomplish their mission. Forward thinking companies are recognizing the importance of empowering compliance officers and relying on their skills to build proactive compliance tools.  Companies are increasingly relying on compliance officers to “fix” the company’s problems – sometimes this...

Patrick Kellerman from LeClairRyan returns with a blog posting on data privacy and data security.  His profile is here. If you ask in-house counsel what keeps them up at night, the response invariably includes “data privacy and security.”  It is a cutting-edge compliance and enforcement risk.  As with any new or increasing risk, companies need to address the problem by building from the ground up. ...

I know I am not supposed to say this but compliance can be simple.  That sounds like heresy but it is not.  A person’s intelligence is always reflected in their ability to explain complex topics in simple terms.  You may be the smartest person, the greatest thinker of all time, but in the end. if you cannot translate those great thoughts into simple ideas, which...

I am honored to welcome back Donna Boehme for today’s posting. Donna is an internationally recognized authority and practitioner in the field of organizational compliance and ethics, designing and managing compliance and ethics solutions within the U.S. and worldwide. As principal of Compliance Strategists LLC, Donna is the former group compliance and ethics officer for two leading multinationals and currently advises a wide spectrum of...

Companies discover FCPA violations all the time – most are small and few are big.  Most companies learn of these violations when implementing or upgrading their compliance program.  Typically, FCPA violations are discovered in the aftermath of an acquisition (months or even years after the acquisition), or in a company’s failure to implement adequate controls and supervision of their third parties and/or distributors. When discovered,...

The financial recoveries for healthcare fraud are staggering.  The Justice Department and Health and Human Services (Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”)) regularly trumpet another round of healthcare fraud arrests and prosecutions.   They have turned healthcare fraud prosecutions into a cottage industry with phenomenal results. But who is committing all of this fraud?  A recent Government Accounting Office...

Benchmarking is a valuable tool because it gives you a window into industry practices.  Compliance professionals have to be careful how they use benchmarking information.  Falling into a benchmark should not necessarily give someone comfort.  It is better to develop your own “personal” benchmark – what you think the company needs, and the reasons for the details of your program. Take for example a recent...

Anti-Corruption Enforcement and Compliance Update: When: November 1, 2012 Time:  12 Noon EDT Who: Michael Volkov and Carlos Ortiz, LeClairRyan Sign up here The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have continued their aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. While there have been fewer settlements in 2012 than prior years, a number of Fortune 500 companies have disclosed ongoing internal...

The old English proverb, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” is particularly apt when you think of the financial industry and corruption compliance.  Maybe it comes from compliance overload, or maybe it is something else in the DNA of the financial industry. One thing is for sure – the financial industry is going to get hit hard in...

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with the compliance staff of a major global company to discuss issues of concern and share ideas.  It was not only a productive meeting; it was an exhilarating experience. You can always learn a lot from compliance professionals – they live and breathe the issues every day.  They have a unique perspective and they bring fresh ideas to...