Tagged: ethical culture

18 May, 2022

The Upside of Managing Third-Party Risks: Advancing Your Culture (Part III of V)

While I have devoted the first two postings to outlining all the downside risks of third-party management and threats to overall organization resiliency and operations, it is important to consider the positive upside of managing your third party population. After all, a large number of third parties represent your organization, such as agents, distributors, and resellers, in the marketplace and frequently interact with company customers. ...

General

26 Apr, 2022

Stericycle DOJ and SEC FCPA Settlement: Lessons Learned (Part III of III)

The Stericycle FCPA case is yet another example of a complete culture and compliance breakdown. As I often repeat myself, there is no more important control than an ethical culture. When a culture veers into the unethical and even criminal conduct, there is nothing to stop that train of illegality from continuing. When you review the facts of Stericycle’s conduct in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina,...

General

15 Mar, 2022

Compliance by Fear: An “Old” Mindset

Compliance and ethical culture mandates have experienced a significant transformation. From the early days of compliance, organizations pigeon-holed compliance into a role akin to “law enforcement.” I will always recall meeting with a client years ago and when the CCO walked into the room, a senior executive exclaimed, “Uh, oh, the sheriff is in town.” That was not a good sign. Compliance by fear is...

General

26 Jan, 2022

CCOs 2022 To-Do List: Ethical Culture and ESG

Chief compliance officers have a difficult job (to say the least). If everything goes well, they are hailed as heroes. If a major problem occurs, everyone looks to the CCO to find out why the problem occurred. In the latter situation, the implicit message to CCOs is “why didn’t you prevent this problem, I thought you were supposed to prevent this.” This reflects a fundamental...

General

12 Jan, 2022

2022 Ethics and Compliance Predictions

Choose to be optimistic. It feels better.” – Dalai Lama Forgive me for my optimism. It is the only way to live a meaningful life. Or as some would say – being a pessimist is too much of a burden. We begin a New Year — and I am optimistic. To turn the corner here on relevance, ethics and compliance professionals, are by definition, optimists. Give...

General

3 Nov, 2021

Keeping Track of Third Party Risks – Bribery and Sanctions

We have heard it over and over, again and again – third-parties pose significant risks of bribery for all global businesses. Almost every FCPA enforcement action includes some form of third-party misconduct. The current picture from the Stanford FCPA Resource confirms the story. A cottage industry of automated platforms, data analytics, due diligence and monitoring strategies have grown around third-party bribery risk. Companies have designed...

General

26 Aug, 2021

Insights from Recent NAVEX Global and KPMG Surveys

Chief compliance officers are always hungry for benchmarking data, for comparisons and insights around how their respective compliance programs stack up against other companies, especially in the same industry. Compliance professionals, as a general rule, are collaborative and willing to share information with each other. CCOs are an optimistic lot and enjoy sharing best practices, ideas and insights in order to further the ethics and...

General

31 Mar, 2021

Meeting the ESG Challenge

Perhaps I am little bit behind. That would be nothing new – but we are getting to the point where we no longer need to spell out ESG. Everyone knows what it means – directors, officers, employees, investors, shareholders and other stakeholders can spell it out. ESG is firmly implanted in the corporate governance landscape. Prosecutors and regulatory agencies are quickly adding ESG to their...

Podcasts

28 Mar, 2021

Episode 187 — Review of DOJ’s Settlement with Boeing for the 737 MAX Safety Scandal

Boeing’s long and tragic scandal surrounding its 737 MAX safety concerns and FAA disclosure violations has come to an end. DOJ announced a settlement early this year, on January 7, 2021, which included a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in exchange for total payments of $2.5 billion, consisting of: a $243.6 million criminal penalty, $1.77 billion in compensation to its airline customers, and $500 million to establish...

General

24 Mar, 2021

ECI’s Global Business Ethics Survey: The Plusses and Minuses (Part I of II)

The Ethics and Compliance Initiative is a terrific organization that provides important ethics and compliance insights and leadership. Starting in 1994, ECI has conducted a longitudinal, cross-section study of workplace conduct. ECI recently issued its sixteenth GBES results, which provide important benchmarks on the state of ethics and compliance programs in business. ECI focuses on the connection between an organization’s ethical culture and workplace behaviors. ...