FCPA Compliance Report

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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 t...

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 ab...

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....

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...

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 wa...

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 questio...

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 doi...

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 empl...

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...

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...

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 ha...

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 aw...

  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 di...

Why is hiring so important under for compliance? It is because hiring is important to any company’s health and reputation. At this point, until the US Supreme Court tells us that a corporation is the same as a human being, with both obligations and rights; a company is only as strong as its employees. Like most areas of compliance good hiring practices for those employees who will do business in c...

One of the theories of conventional wisdom about anti-corruption compliance is that you will never be able to reach 5% of your workforce with compliance training because they are predisposed to lie, cheat and steal anyway. Whether they are simply sociopaths, scumbags or just bad people; it really does not matter. No amount of training is going to convince them to follow the rules, as they do not t...

Today, I conclude my review of FCPA enforcement actions that involved the corporate hiring function. From these three cases I have considered, it is clear that HR must be involved in compliance and if HR hiring controls are over-ridden there must be an appropriate consideration of the risk management issues. In November 2016, JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and its subsidiary, JPMorgan Securities (Asia Paci...

In this episode, Matt Kelly and I take a deep dive into the weeds of the soon-to-be-released the House Financial Services Committee, the Financial Choice 2.0 Act. We consider some of the ideas in the legislation which Matt thinks are bad including: 1. Repeal of the Chevron deference repealed.  2. Attempts to clip the SEC rule making authority. 3. Exempting more companies which desire to go public...

  BNY Mellon Up until the summer of 2015, hiring practices under the FCPA were not been given much thought or widely discussed. However that began to change in the summer of 2015 when the SEC announced a resolution with Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) for violations of the FCPA. This was the first enforcement action around the now infamous Princess-lings and Princelings investigat...

In this podcast, Marc Bohn and James Tillen from the firm of Miller & Chevalier, discuss their recent publication entitled, "Evaluating FCPA Pilot Program: Declinations on the Rise" where they review the state of Department of Justice's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act  declinations after one year of the agency's enforcement Pilot Program, which sought to promote greater accountability for companies...

Day 1-  The Role of Human Resources in Operationalizing Compliance This month, I will consider the role of Human Resources (HR) in operationalizing a best practices compliance program. I have long advocated for a greater role of Human Resources (HR) in a compliance program. Indeed, one sign of a mature Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance and ethics program is the extent to which a comp...

In this episode, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top compliance related stories. We discuss: Trump’s First 100 days end with a decided wimper. What does it mean for compliance? Novartis gets into corruption trouble in South Korea. See article in FCPA Blog. Shell and ENI are in a big corruption mess in Nigeria. See Tom’s article in the FCPA Blog. United Airlines tries...