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...
The SEC is setting its sights on individual prosecutions. Both the Justice Department and the SEC have reiterated the importance of prosecuting individuals. DOJ’s Yates Memorandum promises to deliver an increase in civil and criminal prosecutions. The SEC is delivering on its stated goal of increasing individual prosecutions. In a busy FCPA enforcement week, the SEC settled the SciClone Pharmaceuticals case and a separate prosecution...
When the going gets tough, the tough do not necessarily get going. This is evident in the world of corporate governance, compliance, and defense against aggressive government enforcement. Corporate lobbying interests are pushing a new and dangerous agenda, one that is shortsighted and certain to create problems for chief compliance officers. Several years ago the Chamber of Commerce launched an attack on FCPA enforcement with...
As we close out the year, it is now time to begin the retrospective reviews and predictions for the New Year. I will try to keep them to a minimum but I find it important to reflect and look forward to new challenges. Compliance is a fast moving profession. More attention is being paid to the compliance function, and more companies are embracing the importance...
DOJ’s compliance counsel, Hui Chen, pronounced this year as the compliance year of third party due diligence. This has been a good year for compliance, but I would not characterize this year as limited to third party due diligence. I am not sure why Ms. Chen focused on third party due diligence but frankly there have been a number of significant developments in compliance, including...
I always use the “Streetcar Named Desire” line to describe the challenges a Chief Compliance Officer faces – CCOs depend on the kindness of strangers. It is a little bit of an exaggeration but bear with me. CCOs are not superheroes and cannot by themselves ensure an effective ethics and compliance program. An effective compliance program depends on a positive working relationship among the key...
These are heady days for Chief Compliance Officers. Over the last 20 years, the CCO has moved from the backwater of corporate offices to the front and center of the power structure. We now have debates over the independence of the CCO from the legal function, the reporting obligations and the relationship between the CCO and the board. There is no question that CCOs have...
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. – Mark Twain We all know the obvious – a CEO’s commitment to ethics and compliance is critical to the success of a compliance program. A CEo who stands up and speaks about the company’s culture of compliance is more than a breath of fresh air – it can be the lifeblood...
This week I am devoting five postings to defining the “new” model of ethics and compliance – Compliance 2.0. If you read through compliance writings, blogs, articles, white papers, and other sources, you will see the term “Compliance 2.0” bandied about. It is a term that has yet to be defined but is taking on a life of its own – a reflection perhaps of...
Compliance has to continuously improve – as companies innovate, so do critical foundation functions like compliance. The forces of change on corporate governance and compliance were unleashed years ago. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle – the wave is continuing to grow and so long as corporate misconduct continues, corporate compliance will continue to reinvent itself in new ways....
