A Holistic Approach to Corporate Compliance and Dispute Management
How does compliance relate to the “bread and butter” work of a law department (i.e., dispute and litigation management)? How can an effective compliance program help a law department to address those challenges?
Compliance Programs Reduce Litigation Exposure
Utilizing approaches to matter management developed in the compliance environment would provide a company (and its law department) a means by which to reduce the company’s exposure to disputes and litigation, or at least a means to reduce the total exposure it might otherwise have in that regard.
Director Training: What should it cover and who should lead it?
Directors’ responsibilities have increased significantly of late, A company’s compliance program should reflect that fact and therefore appropriately stress training for its directors to prepare them to fulfill those responsibilities adequately.
A General Counsel And His Experts Tackle Risk Assessments
The risks that an organization faces in its operations vary from entity to entity due to many factors. Accordingly, its ability to anticipate those risks and to create a program that identifies them prospectively and includes processes and procedures that will effectively ameliorate those risks depends on its conducting an effective risk assessment.
The Compliance Department Budget and Value Maximization
Establishing a budget for a corporate compliance program will require securing support from senior management for that business unit and the resources needed to meet the tests applied by external audiences, such as prosecutors.
Audit Committees: Independent Advisors are No Longer an Option
Corporate directors face potential liability much higher than they once did. In addition, their role can stand in opposition to (or, at least, incongruent with) that of senior management.
Business Ethics and Compliance – Establishing an Effective Program
Creating a corporate compliance and ethics program requires a reasoned approach that requires many decisions. The authors of this piece identify several of the more significant issues that one faces in that process and the considerations that should be taken into account.
Companies Turn to the Web to Stay Out of Trouble
A corporate compliance and ethics program must include appropriate training according to government guidance. Increasingly, companies establishing such programs turn to web-based training to reach their global workforces.
Compliance and Ethics Programs: Passivity is Passé
The evolution of corporate compliance programs often follows guidance from government agencies. Changes effected in 2004 in the Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants imposed greater responsibility on corporate management and directors in the context of such programs.
Compliance Programs and Fraud Prevention
A well-constructed compliance program can assist in fraud prevention. This is a more proactive, rather than the prevalent reactive, approach to corporate loss through fraud by employees and others.
Compliance Programs Redefined – Elevating Contractual Responsibilities to Their Proper Place
Most attention in respect of corporate compliance centers on laws and government regulation. This should surprise no one since compliance programs arose in the context of government investigations of antitrust violations, the bribery of
foreign officials to secure lucrative sales and contracts and similar societal offenses. Moreover, the development of compliance programs has followed the path laid out by the U.S.
Corporate Compliance and Ethics Programs – Don’t Sell Them Short
Corporate compliance programs have matured considerably since their beginnings several decades ago. A new career (“compliance officer,” “ethics officer” and several variations of those terms) has arisen, a trade association devoted to “[b]eing the leading provider of ethics, compliance, and corporate governance resources to ethics and compliance professionals worldwide” came into being in the early 90s and government regulators have adopted compliance and ethics protocols in their regulatory regimes.
Corporate Ethics and Compliance Programs: How Can You Demonstrate Their Effectiveness?
Since management commitment and support is the fundamental requirement for effective compliance
programs, it is essential for ethics and compliance officers to successfully demonstrate program effectiveness
in order to gain the trust and active support of internal audiences.
Corporate Ethics Fine-Tuned
Renewed emphasis on ethics and greater responsibilities for boards of directors are the highlights of recent changes to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants.
Hotlines and the Role of Privileged Communications
Questions sometimes arise in respect of corporate compliance programs and the mechanisms that they often include for the receipt of anonymous or confidential reports of wrongdoing or suspected wrongdoing. Such mechanisms often called “hotlines” or “whistleblowing hotlines,” are required by law in certain circumstances and suggested by government agencies in others.
Integrity Interactive: Compliance And Ethics Training In Full Focus
I spent six years in private practice and then, in the mid-80s, I went in-house for the first time. I spent over thirteen years as an in-house lawyer for several real estate organizations, the last of which was the commercial real estate investment units of the company now called Prudential Financial.
The Justice Department Intensifies Its Focus On Corporate Compliance and Ethics Programs
Since the Clinton Administration, the Department of Justice (Department) has issued guidance to the offices of the U.S. Attorneys throughout the nation on the review and assessment of corporate compliance and ethics programs. That review and assessment was intended to enable those prosecuting officials to determine whether and how to prosecute organizational defendants for violations of federal law.
Justice Department is Telling U.S. Attorneys to Aim High
The U.S. Attorneys’ Manual (USAM) ‘‘is one of the most important documents within the Justice Department community.’’ Among its applications, that compendium ‘‘contains guidance on everything from initiating an investigation to closing a case.
Partnering Adds Value To Compliance Training
Compliance is a core organizational value, not only because of its legal ramifications but also because it makes commercial sense. It’s good for business when a company’s personnel have clear-cut guidelines, understand what behavior is expected of them, and know that they work for an organization that stands behind its principles.
The Business Judgment Rule and the Sentencing Guidelines: Uneasy Bedfellows or Intractable Foes?
The “business judgment” rule, crafted by courts, protects decisions by a corporate board of directors from second-guessing when those decisions come under attack in a judicial forum. That rule “is process-oriented and informed by a deep respect for all good-faith board decisions.”
The Global Compliance Landscape – A research file
If you’re the chief compliance officer, you know how important it is to keep the company’s ethics and compliance program current with the law, including the recent changes in the United States Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants.
Wanted: Corporate Directors Not Afraid to Face Millions of Dollars of Personal Liability Since We cannot afford D&O Insurance
Were you to encounter a “help wanted” advertisement in the newspaper with the above specifications, you’d probably look to see if the paper was dated April 1st. An ad such as that is not as far-fetched as it might have been only a few years ago.
