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With all the attention paid to anti-corruption enforcement and compliance, it always amazes me how successful the Department of Justice criminal antitrust enforcement program has been and will continue to be. Starting in the 1990s and continuing year-after-year, the Antitrust Division has built a significant record of
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Change is difficult. I understand that. Business leaders know the importance of change, adaptation and innovation. However, when it comes to compliance and ethics, senior managers slowly embrace change. With all the recent press on spiraling anti-corruption investigations and risks, you would think that business leaders would redouble their
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As a former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mary Jo White promised a new and more aggressive SEC. She is starting to deliver on that promise. Reams and reams of client alerts have been sent out by law firms warning of a new policy requiring certain
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Companies are embracing the independent and empowered chief compliance officer. The trend is continuing to grow and there is no reason it will stop. CCOs are no longer reporting to the general counsel but are now moving into the C-Suite where they can exercise a leadership role. CCOs are
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You have to admire chief compliance officers for their tenacity and ability to multi-task. They are the consummate jugglers of important projects, strategies and tasks. They can never completely finish their tasks – when one is finished, the list continues to grow with more to dos. Over the last few
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A confident person is willing to admit a mistake. An insecure person is unwilling to admit a mistake, even in the face of overwhelming evidence contrary to his or her argument. Not that my prior position was mistaken but I have argued that one of several messages in the FCPA
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Lawyers and compliance professionals repeatedly tout the importance of an internal investigation to protecting a company from devastating consequences from an enforcement action. An internal investigation is important for the company: (1) to evaluate the facts and the potential legal consequences from the events; and (2) to demonstrate the company’
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Can you imagine being the public relations director for China these days? Even in the limited world of foreign bribery, the Chinese have had a rough couple of weeks. Add the latest news to the mix and you have a recipe for a public relations nightmare. JP Morgan disclosed it
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People make bad decisions. Companies make bad decisions. In fairness, sometimes a bad decision is the result of a failure to act, or a failure to prioritize. We are surrounded by oxymorons in our world. I enjoy identifying them. We all know the classics – Compassionate conservatism, military intelligence, etc. In
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The hottest commodity on the job market is the compliance officer. It is about time. No longer are compliance officers considered second-rate professionals, relegated to back office positions and authority. Two trends are responsible for this professional transformation – aggressive enforcement programs and corporate governance focus on risk management. It
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Compliance is hard enough even when the issues are simplified, the tasks are defined, and the strategies are straightforward. It is all too easy to complicate an issue, wrap it in legalese, and technical terms which are used to justify some type of “expertise,” and then claim victory once the
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Returning to the theme of profound grasps of the obvious, compliance officers face numerous challenges where they need creativity and persistence. One area which is not as hard as others is training. A good training program requires common sense. Here is the rocket-science question – How do you make your