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...
A Chief Compliance Officer who lacks working relationships with the business side of a company is like a day without sunshine. No matter how strong or finely tuned a compliance program is on paper – in practice, the success of a compliance program depends on acceptance and embrace by the business. I am always reminded of meeting a business manager in a company who told...
A due diligence infrastructure is designed to demonstrate a company’s good faith commitment to compliance with anti-corruption laws by: identifying corruption risks; and mitigating such risks to ensure that the company does not violate the law. A much simpler way to put it is – a company’s due diligence system is designed to negate any inference of intent to violate the FCPA. A due diligence...
Believe it or not, life principles can be used in compliance, especially in due diligence. I always tell my kids that life has a way of setting priorities. As you get older, life becomes simpler and your priorities become clearer. Now watch this transition – the same goes for due diligence, not the age part but the priorities part. Once you assemble information and data...
He that can have patience can have what he will. – Benjamin Franklin Putting together an effective due diligence system requires patience. I freely admit that I am not a patient person, especially when it comes to ensuring ethics and compliance. By definition, however, effective compliance strategies require patience due to the scope and scale of the changes being implemented across a company. Due diligence is...
This week I am posting a series on due diligence. Also, I just released a new e-book on due diligence which can be downloaded here. There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded. – Mark Twain In a former life (or even present life), Mark Twain had to...
NAVEX Global, Regulatory Data Corporation, and The Volkov Law Group invite you to attend a half-day meeting to discuss Third Party Risk Management: New and Innovative Strategies, on November 5, 2015, 12:30 pm to 6 pm in Silicon Valley. Please Sign Up HERE. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting. The half-day forum will bring together senior ethics and compliance professionals for a...
The SEC’s FCPA enforcement action for $14.6 million against Bristol-Myers Squibb (“BMS”) in China provides a textbook example of how things can go wrong in China. For the compliance practitioner (as well as CEO and senior executives) in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, the BMS enforcement action should be read and digested as a quick checklist of important principles. The facts underlying the BMS...
I am pleased to announce the release of my new e-book: Question Everything — Effective Due Diligence and Third-Party Risk Management. With almost every FCPA enforcement action involving third party misconduct in one form or another, shouldn’t companies devote more resources than ever to due diligence and third-party risk management systems? There’s no magic formula to implementing an effective system. It just takes two things:...
Contrary to the opinion of many in the FCPA space, the BNY Mellon settlement and the looming actions against six major financial institutions for hiring practices is not a big shock or surprise. The SEC is not raising a new or novel interpretation of the FCPA. After all, assuming an actor has corrupt intent, there is no real question as to whether hiring a person...
