Defining Compliance 2.0 — The CEO (Part 2 of 5)

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Michael Volkov – Corruption, Crime & Compliance – November 30, 2015

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. – Mark Twain

We all know the obvious – a CEO’s commitment to ethics and compliance is critical to the success of a compliance program. A CEO who stands up and speaks about the company’s culture of compliance is more than a breath of fresh air – it can be the lifeblood of a compliance program.

A Chief Compliance Officer either has the support of the CEO or does not. There is no in between in this area. If you work at a company where the CEO has a signed letter in the front off your Code of Conduct and a videotaped recording of him or her talking about the importance of ethics and compliance — you do not have  a CEO committed to ethics and compliance.  A CEO who is committed to ethics and compliance has to back up his or her words with real actions – not just directions and orders, but personal actions.

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Read this article on Corruption, Crime & Compliance.

Defining Compliance 2.0: the board (part 1 of 5)

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Michael Volkov – Corruption, Crime & Compliance – November 29, 2015

If you read through compliance writings, blogs, articles, white papers, and other sources, you will see the term “Compliance 2.0” bandied about.  It is a term that has yet to be defined but is taking on a life of its own – a reflection perhaps of the growing and continuing momentum behind the ethics and compliance function.

This series is an attempt to put some meat on the bones (yes, just after Thanksgiving) and advance the discussion around the new model for ethics and compliance.

In the last three years, compliance has been at a “standstill” in terms of defining the elements of an effective ethics and compliance program. The Justice Department and SEC’s FCPA Guidance was a watershed event in defining an effective ethics and compliance program, along with the UK Bribery Act’s adequate procedures, and continuing work from the OECD and other non-profit organizations. But in the end, it was DOJ and the SEC that have moved the compliance function to a new era, fueled by aggressive enforcement actions and political pressure to provide guidance to the business community.

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Read the article on Corruption, Crime & Compliance.

Compliance 2.0 and Trends: Culture and Technology

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Michael Volkov – Corruption, Crime & Compliance – November 18, 2015

Compliance has to continuously improve – as companies innovate, so do critical foundation functions like compliance.

The forces of change on corporate governance and compliance were unleashed years ago. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle – the wave is continuing to grow and so long as corporate misconduct continues, corporate compliance will continue to reinvent itself in new ways.

The days of paper policies, token gestures towards compliance, and half-hearted attempts to follow compliance requirements are gone. New ideas are brewing thanks to a compliance profession committed to innovation and compliance businesses developing new technologies to leverage compliance resources.

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Read this article at Corruption, Crime & Compliance.

Mike Scher: A board-backed code of ethics is a cornerstone of Compliance 2.0

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Mike Scher – The FCPA Blog – November 9, 2015

In the prior post, I mentioned the role of boards of directors in adopting the company’s code of ethics. In this post, I’ll talk about the critical reasons for board-backed codes of ethics.

As we’ve said, under Compliance 2.0, compliance officers aren’t part of the legal department, and the chief compliance officer isn’t working for the general counsel.

A question, then, is how compliance officers, in their new role without legal department authority, can stop lawful but awful projects? Lawyers have the force of law behind then, and the potential of prosecutions against the company. What will back up the authority of the compliance officer?

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Read this article on the FCPA Blog.