Fcpa Compliance Report

The exit interview can be a further mechanism to operationalize compliance. This type of interview is used when someone voluntarily departs from a company, as opposed to a lay-off or reduction in force exercise. Typically departing employees are more willing to share about their experiences, concerns and issues which led to their employment departure. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, entitled “Making Exit Interviews Count”, authors Everett Spain and Boris Groysberg demonstrate that exit interviews, when conducted with care, can be a very useful tool in two important areas: to increase employee engagement, to reveal what may not be working in the organization. These points speak directly to operationalizing compliance through Human Resources (HR). Exit interviews can provide insight into what employees are thinking, reveal problems in the organization, and shed light on the competitive landscape. They believe that companies should focus on six goals in their exit interviews, that there must be an

Employment separation and layoffs can present some unique challenges for the compliance practitioner. Employees can use layoffs to claim that they were retaliated against for a wide variety of complaints, including those for concerns that impact the compliance practitioner. Yet there are several ways that operationalization will help to protect your company as much as possible. Before you begin your actual layoffs, the compliance practitioner should work with your legal department and HR function to make certain your employment separation documents are in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirement regarding Confidentiality Agreement and Separation Agreement language which purports to prevent employees from bringing potential violations to appropriate law or regulatory enforcement officials. Such documents must not have language preventing an employee taking such action. But this means more than having appropriate or even approved language in your CA, as you must counsel those who

This week, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top compliance related stories. We discuss:  Brazilian President Temer comes under corruption fire? See article in the New York Times. The turmoil at FIFA continues as FIFA’s ethics watchdogs quit in protest after their chairman was fired. See article in Bloomberg. Should compliance and ethics be wedded? New report by Institute of Business Ethics and the Ethics Institute considers the issues. See article in WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal. The Fat Leonard scandal lands U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert Gilbeau with a prison sentence of 18 months. See article in the FCPA Blog. Almost one-third of all open FCPA investigations involve Brazil. Only 17% involve China. See article in the FCPA Blog. Astros lead the MLB with the best record in baseball. Will they regress to the mean? ComTech is here. Are you ready? See Tom’s article in the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog. Jay previews his Weekend Report. It is not too late to join me at Comp

What should a company do when it desires to hire a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO).  I sat down and visited with Maurice Gilbert, the Managing Partner at Conselium Partners LP. Gilbert believes that it behooves any company to find the right CCO or compliance practitioner for the right position. But to do so, a company needs to fully understand and appreciate what it needs from such a position going forward. Unfortunately, many companies do not have this insight at the beginning of the recruitment process.  The process often begins with the company supplied job description, which Gilbert noted is “typically a legacy of various things that are not even updated. It's a hodgepodge of things that maybe began a few years ago, but it needs to be updated to reflect what’s going on in the company at that particular moment. You have certain business risks. You have certain regulatory risks.... You need to be attentive to those risks so that you could build your profile about what those risks need to be addressed present

In this second of a two-part series, we conclude the panel’s discussion of the first 100 days of the Trump administration as it relates to compliance. This episode concludes with the panelists’ rants. Matt Kelly opens with a discussion of regulatory enforcement under the Trump administration, how the ‘Trump Effect’ is negatively impacting corporations, industry responses to deregulation issues and lays down some markers around compliance issues under the new administration. For Matt Kelly’s posts see the following: Compliance in the Trump Era: More Markers Placed Trump Administration Whacks Telco Firm for $892 Million Drone Industry Pan Trump’s Regulatory Trump Risk Disclosures Start Rolling In First SEC Whistleblower Award of Trump Era Sessions Dodges, Weaves, Promises on FCPA   Mike Volkov rounds out the discussion with a review of where the DOJ is currently under AG Sessions, remarks by DOJ officials on FCPA enforcement, the future of the Pilot Program and DOJ Compliance Counsel, Hui Chen.  For M

One of the ways to operationalize compliance and to drive it into the DNA of an organization is through a performance review. Indeed, the 2012 FCPA Guidance states, “DOJ and SEC recognize that positive incentives can also drive compliant behavior. These incentives can take many forms such as personnel evaluations and promotions, rewards for improving and developing a company’s compliance pro­gram, and rewards for ethics and compliance leadership. Some organizations, for example, have made adherence to compliance a significant metric for management’s bonuses so that compliance becomes an integral part of management’s everyday concern.” Most HR experts will opine that properly executed performance appraisals are crucial to organizational productivity as well as the development of employee skills and employee morale. Moreover, they can serve a couple of different functions for a best practices compliance program. First, and foremost, they communicate to each employee their job performance from a compliance persp

In this episode Matt Kelly and I take a deep dive into the cutting edge topic of artificial intelligence in many areas, including compliance. We discuss the uses of Artificial Intelligence in compliance. We consider how AI has progressed and what it means now for the compliance practitioner and what it will mean in the future. For Matt's blog post on the topic go to Don't Outsmart Yourself: AI and Compliance For Tom's blog post on the topic go to AI for Risk Management: A New Business Advantage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another area where compliance can play a key role is in succession planning. A.G. Lafley and Noel M. Tichy, writing in the Harvard Business Review, in an article entitled “The Art and Science of Finding the Right CEO”, discussed the issue of succession planning during his tenure as the Chief Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble (P&G). Many of the concepts and issues that Lafley discusses within the context of succession planning in general are applicable to the concern of compliance within this area. Lafley makes clear that succession planning is just as important as governance, enterprise risk and strategic oversight. In other words, it is just as important. Sadly, many companies fail to give it the attention it requires. Indeed, in a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, cited in the foreword, nearly one-half of the more than 1,000 directors gauged reported dissatisfaction with their companies’ succession plans. Imagine what that number would be if they took into account the compliance aspect of succession planni

In this episode, I visit with Pat Harned, Chief Executive Officer of the Ethics and Compliance Initiative on the recently concluded annual conference. She discusses the speech of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the panel of former Deputy Attorney Generals, as well as some of the other Key Note speaking session highlights. She also details some of the upcoming ECI events for 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, Prong 8 Incentive and Disciplinary Measures it states: Incentive System – Consistent Application – Have the disciplinary actions and incentives been fairly and consistently applied across the organization?  In the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 13 point minimum best practices compliance program, Item 10 states: Discipline. A Company should have appropriate disciplinary procedures to address, among other things, violations of the anti-corruption laws and the Company's anti-corruption compliance code, policies, and procedures by the Company's directors, officers, and employees. A Company should implement procedures to ensure that where misconduct is discovered, reasonable steps are taken to remedy the harm resulting from such misconduct, and to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to prevent further similar misconduct, including assessing the internal controls, ethics, and compliance program and making modifications necessary to ensu

This week, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top compliance related stories. We discuss:  What is the real risk in a FCPA enforcement action? See Mike Volkov’s post in Corruption, Crime and Compliance. FIFA fires its lead internal investigators for doing their job investigating. See Tom’s article in Compliance Week. ECI Report Finds Use of Corporate Monitors is on the Rise. For a copy of report, click here. For a webinar replay with Affiliated Monitors’ Eric Feldman and Nasdaq’s Michael Kallens click here. Why the judgment of CEOs and their actions really do matter. See James Stewart considers Barclays’ Jes Staley in his Common Sense column in the New York Times. What role do incentives play in a compliance program? See Tom’s two podcasts on the issue, incentives for executives and incentives in sales programs. Astros lead the MLB with the best record in baseball. The Rockets gag on the big one. Jay previews his Weekend Report, compliance lessons from a trip to the zoo. Liste

In the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, Prong 8 Incentive and Disciplinary Measures it states: Incentive System –How has the company considered the potential negative compliance implications of its incentives and rewards?  This week I have been considering how a company could use incentives to further a compliance program and the role of HR in this process. I want to consider how incentives might lead to the converse but looking at the intersection of sales incentives and compliance which led to the problems at Wells Fargo. When you misalignment these two concepts with a faulty sales strategy it can lead to a catastrophic failure, literally costing a company millions of dollars in fines, loss of business and depreciation of shareholder value.  The sales incentives under which Wells Fargo came to such grief is simple and even benign, cross-selling of products. As noted by Rachel Louise Ensign, writing in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article entitled “Banks Simple Strategy Get

Today I want to focus on incentives, looking at senior management and compensation. I thought about this inter-connectedness of compensation in a compliance program, focusing up the corporate ladder when I read a recent article in the New York Times (NYT) by Gretchen Morgenson, in her Fair Game column, entitled “Ways to Put the Boss’s Skin In the Game”. Her piece dealt with a long-standing question about how to make senior executives more responsible for corporate malfeasance? Her article had some direct application to anti-corruption compliance programs such as those based on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) or UK Bribery Act. Morgenson said the issue was “Whenever a big corporation settles an enforcement matter with prosecutors, penalties levied in the case – and they can be enormous – are usually paid by the company’s shareholders. Yet the people who actually did the deeds or oversaw the operations rarely so much as open their wallets.”  She went on to explain that it is an economic phenomenon c

This episode is the first of a two-part series of podcasts dedicated to the chaotic (at best) first 100 days of the Trump administration as it related to compliance. Today we have Jonathan Armstrong and Jay Rosen. Next week Matt Kelly and Mike Volkov.  Jonathan Armstrong leads a discussion of the Trump administrations devolution of Privacy Shield, GDPR and what they mean for American companies doing business in the UK and EU. He discusses the key differences in the DOJ’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in an FCPA analysis and under the Bribery Act, differences in the EU approach to conflict minerals and under the Trump Administration and concludes by giving us his thoughts on what Brexit means for compliance. For the Cordery Compliance client alerts see the following: EU conflicts minerals compliance legislation  DOJ Evaluation of Corporate Compliance: how does it compare to UK Bribery Act 2010? BREXIT Glossary Jay Rosen considers what companies the intersection of business and politics under

One of the areas that many companies have not paid as much attention to in their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) anti-corruption compliance programs is compensation. However the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have long made clear that they view monetary structure for compensation, rewarding those employees who do business in compliance with their employer’s compliance program, as one of the ways to reinforce the compliance program and the message of compliance. As far back as 2004, the then SEC Director of Enforcement, Stephen M. Cutler, said “[M]ake integrity, ethics and compliance part of the promotion, compensation and evaluation processes as well. For at the end of the day, the most effective way to communicate that “doing the right thing” is a priority, is to reward it.” The FCPA Guidance states the “DOJ and SEC recognize that positive incentives can also drive compliant behavior. These incentives can take many forms such as personnel evaluations and promoti

In this episode, Roy Snell and I discuss the following: Measuring the effectiveness of your compliance program three ways; Why Roy thinks the CO shouldn’t chair the compliance committee – but maybe the general counsel should; Who I think should chair the compliance committee; Why you should prove your point 5 different ways instead of just 1; Brexit: Keep Calm and Do Compliance; and How Compliance transcends politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In metrics laid out by former Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell, she spoke about the need for compliance program incentives.  She posed it with the following question, “Are there mechanisms to enforce compliance policies? Those include both incentivizing good compliance and disciplining violations.”  I think most compliance professionals understand the need to discipline employees who may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) or otherwise engaged in bribery and corruption. However, many CCOs and compliance practitioners do not focus as much attention to compliance incentives. I have developed six core principles for incentives, adapted from an article in the Spring 2014 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review entitled “Combining Purpose with Profits” and reformulated them for the compliance function in an anti-corruption compliance program.  Compliance incentives don’t have to be elaborate or novel. The first point is that there are only a limited number of compliance incentives

In this episode I caught up with Paula Long, founder and CEO of DataGravity, Inc. at the recently concluded Collision 2017 Conference. Paula has worked in the data and information space for over 30 years and now helps companies with data security and data privacy. We discuss the intersection of these issues with compliance and how they all converge for a CCO or compliance practitioner. The site has some great resources for the compliance practitioner and data professional including white papers on continuous monitoring of sensitive data and detecting and tracking anomalous use and behaviors around data. Check out more about Paula and DataGravity by going to the site DataGravity.com.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, Prong 8 Incentive and Disciplinary Measures it states:  Incentive System – How has the company incentivized compliance and ethical behavior? How has the company considered the potential negative compliance implications of its incentives and rewards? Have there been specific examples of actions taken (e.g., promotions or awards denied) as a result of compliance and ethics considerations?  Further, one of the key points that representatives of the DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have continually raised when discussing any best practices compliance program; whether based on the Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, as articulated in their 2012 FCPA Guidance, or some other articulation such as in a Deferred Prosecution Agreement’s (DPA) Attachment C embedded in a compliance program. They continually remind Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) and compliance practitioners that any best practices compliance program

  Over some breakfast tacos and Mexican coffee, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top compliance related stories. We discuss:  Uganda considers a demand side response to corruption. See Tom’s article in Compliance Week. What are the rationales for anti-corruption legislation? See Tom’s post on the rationales underlying the FCPA on the FCPA Compliance Report. Why due diligence investigations still need the human element. See Scott Shaffer’s article in FCPA Blog. Kara Brockmeyer joins Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. See Tom’s article in the FCPA Blog. What has been the fate of whistleblowers at Wells Fargo. See James Stewart considers in his Common Sense column in the New York Times. Federal jury convicts former Guinea mining minister of laundering bribes. See article in the FCPA Blog. Astros lead the AL with the second best record in baseball. What does Tony Parker’s injury mean for the Spurs/Rockets playoff series? The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) investigates KPMG on its au