When you look back on the rise of the ethics and compliance profession, you cannot ignore the history of accomplishments.  It is easy to minimize these accomplishments as a reaction to the government’s aggressive FCPA enforcement program. Companies are starting to embrace ethics and compliance as a positive force to build sustainable financial growth – which is the true calling of a robust ethics and...

My final posting on this week’s ethics series is a call to action for all compliance professionals. Every compliance officer should insist on and embrace a title – “Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer.” Some larger organizations have a separate ethics officer, and I am not suggesting to merge the positions. Every company should have a chief ethics officer, either as a separate function or as...

A Chief Compliance Officer faces many challenges in designing and implementing an effective ethics and compliance program. If a CCO conducts appropriate due diligence before joining the company, he will know the challenges he is facing. All too often, I hear of CCOs who join a company based on numerous promises and representations by the CEO, the board and senior managers about the importance of...

While reading the independent directors’ report on the Wells Fargo sales incentives scandal, you will be overwhelmed by the feeling of frustration. At the same time, what is described in the report is the extent to which every control function came up against the problem staring them in the face – Wells Fargo’s sales incentive program was out of control. Notwithstanding the 20-20 hindsight pictured...

Here is a profound grasp of the obvious – Lawyers can be difficult people. Some like to condemn the profession in its entirety (and carry with them a collection of lawyer jokes). As an attorney, I beg to differ. Many professions include and reward difficult people. For example, CEOs have the highest incidence of psychopathy among professionals. Lawyers are no different and expected to zealously...

We all tend to gloss over a critical requirement for an effective ethics and compliance program – tone-at-the-top. I hate to be dogmatic about the issue but, as Mel Brooks said in the Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 4, Episode 1), “You either got it or you ain’t.” The same is true for the board, CEO and senior executive commitment to ethics and compliance. Every Chief...

We all know the scene but choose to ignore it – a senior employee or manager is taking an online training course and is talking on the phone, writing emails and basically ignoring the training session. Why? Because it has no importance to the employee’s job. It is irrelevant but something he or she has to complete. A check the box task if ever there...

Companies face an ever-changing constellation of risks, enforcement priorities and demands for internal controls and compliance program elements. As more resources are poured into government enforcement programs, companies have to “reinvent” compliance programs to incorporate new priorities and demands. Many companies have established complaint systems and internal investigation programs to conduct routine and serious investigation. In most cases, these systems do not adequately address whistleblower...

The term “due diligence” is an overused expression in the compliance world. It has become a term to mean heightened concern or investigation. No one can really define what it means except to say it has different meanings in different contexts. Some would say it is a term of art in the legal and compliance world. It is misleading to add the term “investigation” to...

Just to add my voice to the cottage industry surrounding FCPA enforcement and compliance, I wanted to take a deep breath and offer some observations on FCPA enforcement in 2016. There are a few significant headlines for the year so far, and I suspect more to come as we get close to the end of the year when FCPA enforcement usually picks up a little...