Sit at the Center of Reshaping Business
Explore how visionary compliance professionals innovate business practices to ensure their compliance programs and organizations keep pace with ever-evolving business trends.
The most effective compliance professionals are ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the industry and getting in front of organizational and regulatory changes. Along with being skilled forecasters and diligent program orchestrators, compliance leaders know that the future of compliance is culture. Forward thinking organizations strive to build a culture where all employees know that doing the right thing is expected, understand the standards that apply to them and are confident their management is committed to operating with integrity.
This section will highlight the importance of your corporate culture and the best practices that will help ensure your organization’s culture is aligned with your compliance program’s and organization’s goals. It will also provide insight into the direction the world of compliance is headed and how we can continue to be as prepared as possible to lead our organizations effectively into the brave new world of compliance.
Much like the inaugural Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs released in 2017, the updated version released just at the end of April 2019, provides questions, perspectives and context the Fraud Section finds relevant when investigating criminal misconduct.
Much like the inaugural Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs released in 2017, the updated version released just at the end of April 2019, provides questions, perspectives and context the Fraud Section finds relevant when investigating criminal misconduct.
“Effectiveness” is consistently top of mind for compliance officers. However, it has special intensity today after Brian Benczkowski, Assistant AG for the Criminal Division of the DOJ, announced updates to the DOJ’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.
Organizations with effective, robust compliance programs – those prepared to answer the rigorous questioning that so often comes with a regulator’s or law enforcement visit – have much less to worry about than those with lax (or faulty) programs. Once an investigation is underway, the original compliance issue that triggered it quickly becomes secondary to the conversation. Focus shifts to program effectiveness as a whole. It’s at this point the compliance officer has the opportunity to show the incident was isolated rather than the result of systemic failure. Or not.
Much like the inaugural Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs released in 2017, the updated version released just at the end of April 2019, provides questions, perspectives and context the Fraud Section finds relevant when investigating criminal misconduct. Although not to be used as a rigid checklist or a formula for compliance, it does provide guiding insights for compliance executives.
In addition to the original topics and questions posed in 2017, three new themes have been elevated in the updates to provide broader context. These are:
Building on the original evaluation, these key themes tie “effectiveness” much tighter to the unique demands of individual organizations including, lines of business, regulatory landscape, size, location, and industry, among other factors.
While the new Evaluation includes quite a bit of additional language emphasizing the department’s current focus, the two pull quotes below are especially indicative: (italics used for emphasis)
To be considered effective, your compliance program needs be designed and implemented in a manner intimately tailored to your business, your risk, and your people. Many have already subscribed to this philosophy, but today with the ever-growing corporate variables compliance professionals are responsible for, it is helpful to know which ones regulators and law enforcement are keeping top of mind.
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