Complacency in compliance is a cancer on a company’s culture. Woody Allen said it best in Annie Hall: A [compliance program] relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark. Here is the video clip of the scene: here When a Chief Compliance...
Some things are easy to define by negative inferences. Corporate ethics or business ethics are not the same as legal ethics. Business ethics are not the same as our philosophy ethics – Aristotle and all of the classic philosophers were not operating in a corporate context. Some things require a positive definition. To bring about real change in the area of business ethics, a clear...
Before a Chief Compliance Officer accepts a new position with a company, a potential CCO should conduct his/her own “due diligence” of the prospective employer. A company without a corporate culture of ethics and compliance can pose serious challenges for CCOs seeking to implement an effective ethics and compliance program. In the absence of a real commitment from the board and the CEO, a CCO...
“It is Time” – Rafiki, The Lion King Corporate scandals continue to rack up – I am not just blowing smoke on this fact. Corporate boards are under greater scrutiny but the hardest place to bring reform is the corporate boardroom. Old institutions do not change quickly and there is an inherent resistance to change when it comes to a corporate boardroom. The old dynamic...
As a federal prosecutor with lots of trial experience, I generally know what questions to ask a witness or a defendant. In the compliance arena, there is much more leeway in how and what questions you ask. Many companies conduct employee surveys. These surveys are usually administered by human resources across the organization every year or two. I do not oppose these surveys but recommend...
In the wreckage of a corporate FCPA enforcement action, a company has to answer two important questions. First, how did the conduct occur without senior executives and the Board learning or suspecting that such conduct was occurring or could occur? Second, how did the wrongdoers obtain access to the money needed to fund the bribery scheme? I know these two questions are fairly obvious, but...
Compliance always boils down to people and interpersonal relationships. No man is an island, and no one can go it alone in compliance. One essential requirement for effective compliance is the ability to engage colleagues and your audience. Many senior executives are smart people –we all understand that. But too often senor executives embrace an interpersonal style of cheerleading. It allows them to appear to...
A Chief Compliance Officer has a number of important relationships to maintain in an organization. Aside from the support of senior level executives, the CCO has to build an effective working relationship with the board and the relevant board committee responsible for ethics and compliance. From an operational standpoint, a CCO has to use the board to advance an issue when frustrated by senior management....
The Volkswagen scandal will be studied for years. One of many themes from the Volkswagen scandal will rest on the complete absence of any commitment to corporate governance. Volkswagen’s weird corporate structure (it is owned in large part by a family) and labor and government interests resulted in a mish-mosh of influences that permitted the family to exercise almost unbridled control over corporate functions, leaving...
One person who does not have a conflict in evaluating a company’s reputational risks should manage a company’s reputation. This approach starts with one basic requirement – the board and the CEO have to agree that a company’s reputational risks should be managed and mitigated. As an initial step, the company has to assign responsibility for reputational risk to a senior executive responsible for risk...
