Forgive me for going out on a limb here.  But this issue is fairly obvious.  A simple question: Should the Chief Compliance Officer be responsible for the Environmental, Social and Governance function? I have to set it up this way to give the dogmatic, binary, yes or no, answer, and then continue to outline a more nuanced discussion of the relationship between CCO and the...

In a far-reaching action, the Biden Administration elevated the global fight against corruption as a national security interest. In an Executive Memorandum, the Biden Administration made a strong statement against corruption, citing the devastating impact that corruption has on democratic institutions, democratic governments, economic development, and other public interest objectives. The Administration launched a robust inter-agency review of the anti-corruption battle, including increased international cooperation,...

LRN’s annual Ethics and Compliance Program Effectiveness Report is an important yearly event.  The report is often filled with important trends and observations.  For compliance officers, there is always important trends and information to review. As we know, however, 2021 was no ordinary year.  Instead, for many companies, the challenges of COVID-19 split the year into two – and LRN has followed suit.  Its first...

NAVEX Global produces a number of important compliance program reports.  NAVEX Global always has played an important thought-leadership role in the ethics and compliance field. NAVEX Global’s annual Incident Management Benchmark Report provides important data on employee engagement and reporting.  A copy of the Report can be downloaded here. The Report is based on NAVEX Global’s massive incident reporting database connected to its hotline reporting...

Sometimes it takes a public event to remind corporate risk managers about the importance of effective risk management.  While corporate risk management functions have become yet another “hot” topic or new-fangled response to corporate failures to prevent obvious risk, most organizations continue to wander in the world of reactive business planning rather than proactive prevention.  It has been fairly obvious for years that most corporate...

Corporations are holding their respective breaths.  SEC Chairperson Gary Gensler and his SEC colleagues are moving quickly to establish a regulatory framework for ESG disclosures.  Climate change and diversity are the key issues surrounding this disclosure regime.  The SEC initiative is easier said than done and presents a number of interesting issues that will have to be resolved.  The SEC has invited comments on climate...

Over the last ten years, we have seen a steady increase in the coordination and cooperation among international prosecutors and law enforcement to prosecute bribery cases. In a recent example, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against two former diplomats from Chad for taking a $2 million bribe from Griffiths Energy International, Inc., a Canadian energy company.  The indictment was originally returned in 2019 and...

LRN and NAVEX Global release two important annual surveys.  LRN issues a yearly report on ethics and compliance program effectiveness.  NAVEX Global issues an important annual report on incident management trends based on its large database of hotline data. In this Episode, Michael Volkov review these two reports and the important ethics and compliance trends.

The Justice Department continues to pile up victories out of the world soccer FIFA federation bribery scandal.  Julius Baer Group, the Swiss banker, agreed to a three-year, deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) and to pay nearly $80 million to resolve money laundering charges. Julius Baer laundered approximately $36 million in bribes between February 2013 and May 2015 in which sports marketing companies bribed soccer officials for...

The Department of Justice is starting to launch its FCPA enforcement profile after a brief lull in DOJ’s transition to a new administration.  This enforcement lull occurred in the transition to the prior administration in 2016, and there is nothing to glean from it since it is a natural occurrence when a new Justice Department administration takes the reins of power. Last week, we had...