FCPA Compliance Report

In this inaugural episode of the FCPA Compliance Report-International Edition, I have Carlos Ayres, a partner in Madea, Ayres and Sarubbi in Sao Paulo. We discuss an  interesting development from the Odebrecht corruption scandal, federal prosecutors in Brazil and ten other countries recently announced they had agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigations surrounding the company. The Odebrecht cas...

The Justice Department Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs states the following around training: Training and Communications Risk-Based Training – What training have employees in relevant control functions received? Has the company provided tailored training for high-risk and control employees that addressed the risks in the area where the misconduct occurred? What analysis has the company...

In this episode Kristy Grant-Hart, author of How to be a Wildly Successful Compliance Officer joins me to debate the merits of the ISO 37001 certification. I think the process is worse than useless while Kristy believes they are a step forward.  For our additional written commentary on this issues, see Kristy's post The top five myths about ISO 37001 exposed. For my views in opposition, see ENI Re...

In this episode, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on the intersection of culture and ethics. We discuss:  German authorities raid at VW investigation counsel, Jones Day, offices in Germany and what it may portend for FCPA investigation. See Tom’s article on the FCPA Blog. British cycling team scandal. See Tom’s article on the FCPA Blog. Uber, culture and corporate governance. See FT articl...

Another way to operationalize compliance is to have oversight moved out into regions. Such an approach can more effectively ensure employee and third party compliance with your Code of Conduct throughout a organization by integrating compliance into every aspect of a Company’s functions and generating the necessary information to continuously improve your compliance program. Such a regional compli...

The operationalization of your compliance programs means how deeply is compliance integrated into the function of your company. Today, I want to consider another way to operationalize compliance through the Compliance Oversight Committee. The Compliance Oversight Committee sits between the CCO and the Board’s compliance committee. The role of this Compliance Oversight Committee is to provide overs...

This episode is dedicated to the Justice Department’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, which was released in February. In this episode, Matt Kelly and Mike Volkov provide next insight. Next week will be views from Jay Rosen and Jonathan Armstrong.    Matt Kelly opens by considering the Evaluation as a continuation in a series of pronouncements around ‘operationalizing’ your compliance...

  Today I want to explore in some detail the first Objective in the COSO 2013 Framework-the Control Environment as a path to operationalize your compliance program. This Objective lays out five steps you can take to put the responsibility on function corporate disciplines to imbue compliance into the fabric of an organization.  A.        Control Environment  Rittenberg said this “sets the tone for...

In this episode, Matt Kelly and I take a deep dive into a dramatic 48 hours in the life of the FCPA last week, which portends the trend of continued FCPA enforcement. It included the announcement by Kevin Blanco, acting assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, who speaking at the American Bar Association’s annual white collar crime conference of the extension of the FCPA Pilot Program...

Under the Prong entitled “Policies and Procedures” subtexted Operational Integration, the Evaluation states:  Payment Systems – How was the misconduct in question funded (e.g., purchase orders, employee reimbursements, discounts, petty cash)? What processes could have prevented or detected improper access to these funds? Have those processes been improved? While of the basic Watergate maxims has a...

  If there is one over-riding theme from the recently released Evaluation of Corporate Compliance programs it is that a corporate compliance program must be operationalized. Indeed that is the theme of this month’s series of podcasts. Another way to think about operationalization is the connectedness of compliance throughout an organization. In an article from the Harvard Business Review (HBR), en...

In this episode, I have back John Champion, one-half of the podcast duo going through every Star Trek TV episode and movie at missionlogpodcast.com. Today, I visit with John on his reflections on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, what Star Trek was like both with and post Gene Roddenberry, our differences over the TNG episode Relics and John's upcoming conference appearance. Check out John and hi...

In this episode, I visit with Morrison and Forrester partner James Koukios, on the firm's publication "Top Ten International Anti-Corruption Developments for January 2017.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jay Rosen reports live from the ABA White Collar Conference at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.  In addition to providing his insights on the highlights of the conference and the buzz around the new Justice Department Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs document released in February, we discuss: Adam Davidson’s piece in the New Yorker Magazine entitled, “Donald Trump’s Wo...

Operationalizing your compliance program can take many shapes and forms. Using the entire risk management process to embed your compliance program within the contours of your organization is an important, key step as it will allow you to have full visibility of your compliance risks through a longer life cycle. Forecasting allows you to consider your business strategy and wed the risks you can for...

I continue my discussion of operationalizing your compliance program through the risk management process by considering risk-based monitoring. I continue this series based upon interviews with Ben Locwin, Director of Global R&D at BioGen and an operational strategist in pharma and healthcare, to explore risk forecast, risk assessment and risk monitoring for the compliance profession.  Locwin said,...

In this episode, I visit with New Yorker reporter Adam Davidson, who penned an article in the New Yorker which looked at a hotel deal between the Trump organization and a family of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) in Azerbaijan. Davidson talks about what intrigued him about the story, his reporting and most troubling, the PEPs alleged ties to funding from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. It is a...

The DOJ Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs states: Risk Management Process – What methodology has the company used to identify, analyze, and address the particular risks it faced? Information Gathering and Analysis – What information or metrics has the company collected and used to help detect the type of misconduct in question? How has the information or metrics informed the company’s co...

The Justice Department Fraud Section recently revamped its website and it is quite an upgrade. I do not know when the Fraud Section did this update but as with the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs document, it certainly was a soft launch. It appears the new site compiles several disparate sources of Fraud Section and Justice Department information into one website. Also, there looks to...

At its heart, every business tries to plan for its future. It is a critical aspect of any management of any organization, non-profits, privately owned for profits and, of course, publicly traded companies. It is important that management be able to set out what it opines will happen in the next three, six, twelve and twenty-four months. Noted health care process expert Ben Locwin has said this “is...

In this Part III to a three part podcast series, I visit with noted risk management expert, Ben Locwin on risk-based monitoring as a adjunct to forecasting and risk assessments. We discuss how to accomplish it and how to integrate into your overall monitoring and feedback loops. We conclude with a stitching together of the risk management process. For More Information see my five part blog series...

Analysis and Remediation of Underlying Misconduct Root Cause Analysis – What is the company’s root cause analysis of the misconduct at issue? What systemic issues were identified? Who in the company was involved in making the analysis?  A root cause analysis should be a method to learn more about your business process and what went wrong so that the systems and process itself can be changed becaus...

Jay Rosen and I dedicate the entire episode to the FUBAR surrounding the Oscar ceremony where the Best Picture award was given to the wrong picture. We consider the control failures around the incident, look at it from a compliance program perspective, consider the failures in light of the new Justice Department Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs and conclude with the lessons to be learne...

Yesterday I began a two-part series on the Department of Justice (DOJ’s) “Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs” (Evaluation) posted on the Fraud Section in February. The document is an 11-part list of questions which encapsulates the DOJ’s most current thinking on what constitutes a best practices compliance program. Within the list are some 46 different questions that a Chief Compliance Of...

The Evaluation, most generally, follows the DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) seminal Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, released in the 2012 FCPA Guidance. If there is one over-riding theme in the Evaluation, it is the DOJ’s emphasis on operationalizing your compliance program as the questions posed are designed to test how far down your compliance program is incor...