All Articles

UK legislators have proposed major amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill currently passing through Parliament. If adopted, the amendments would significantly expand the range of potential corporate crime offenses available to prosecutors, introducing new so-called “failure to prevent” fraud, false accounting and money laundering offenses for corporates, and — perhaps most radically...

By the beginning of next year, large companies in the EU or that do a substantive amount of business in EU countries will be required to issue sustainability disclosures under new rules. ESG columnist John Peiserich sorts through the details. In mid-November 2022, the European Parliament adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a major...

Last week, about 300 ethics and compliance professionals descended upon Amsterdam’s Hotel Okura to participate in SCCE’s European Compliance & Ethics Institute for two and a half days of knowledge sharing and networking. CCI columnist Mary Shirley breaks down her thoughts from two of the sessions she attended. My first visit to Amsterdam, and first...

After a Covid-related grace period, new contract accounting standards — ASC 606 — are in effect for both public and private companies. Tom Zauli of Softrax, explores what you need to know about meeting accounting standards in an uncertain economy. In 2020, the U.S. economy entered a recession resulting from the global Covid pandemic. This...

Compliance is a huge part of the job description for any member of the board of directors, so it’s no wonder that for many compliance practitioners, a board seat is an attractive option. As someone who’s served on public and private boards, RoseRyan’s David Roberson shares his perspective. Compliance professionals can fill in critical expertise...

When all is said and done, it’s likely that Silicon Valley Bank’s failure will be traced back to one serious flaw — shoddy risk management. Supply Wisdom’s Atul Vashistha shares the lessons that all companies should take away from this fiasco, even if they weren’t directly affected. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is the...

Phishing attempts are only growing more sophisticated by the day, and effective cybersecurity means defending all the vectors of attack, particularly the human ones, as they’re the most vulnerable. KnowBe4’s Perry Carpenter talks about establishing a defense-in-depth strategy and how it starts with your culture. Phishing has been around for decades, but it continues to...

In our hyper-connected world, it’s easy to push our human need for peace to the back-burner. But a well-being practice isn’t just about active mindfulness; it’s also about embracing stillness. It seems like 2023 began with a burst of energy. There are taxes to be filed, programs to be assessed, momentum and lift achieved. In...

A trio of policy statements dating back to 1993 established the concept of safety zones with regard to information exchanges and antitrust laws. But now that the DOJ has rescinded that guidance, the waters around safe harbors are decidedly murky. Fiona Schaeffer and Adam Di Vincenzo of Milbank dive into these developments. For decades, a...

Former employment attorney and entrepreneur Erika Royal challenges companies to get real on DEI and offers some actionable steps to get them started. An estimated 80% of U.S. employers have DEI initiatives underway, but a much smaller share of business leaders truly understand how to effectively implement DEI strategies in their workplaces. DEI has the...

With federal investigations pending, the autopsy of Silicon Valley Bank and resulting cascade of bank failures is only just beginning. Experts have suggested a faulty risk model is partially to blame, and while sharing customer data with its peers likely would not have saved the bank, business data analyst Sukirt Singh suggests SVB and other...

(Sponsored) In today’s world, financial criminals are often a step ahead of regulators and financial institutions who struggle to effectively guard against the threat of money laundering and financial crime. It was once estimated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that money laundered throughout the world on an annual basis can be up to 2%...

The past year has seen internal audit staffing and budgets continue their recovery to pre-pandemic levels as organizations contend with an increasingly broad risk landscape, according to new research from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). IIA’s 2023 North American Pulse of Internal Audit survey found that technology was a primary driver of risk, including...

From startups to big banks, the technology and financial services sector have already seen tens of thousands of layoffs in 2023. Not only do these cuts challenge main business functions, but they could lead to serious trouble down the road in the form of insider fraud. Bottomline Technologies’ Chris Gerda talks about new approaches banks...

The DOJ’s Fraud Section had a banner year in 2022, posting its highest number of convictions in a single year — 56 — and continuing the agency’s stated focus on individual accountability. Sandra Moser, Justin D. Weitz and Erica A. Jaffe from Morgan Lewis unpack the agency’s annual report. In recent years, the number of...

The collapse of a business doesn’t usually happen all at once. There are warning signs. Late payments, legal filings and falling credit scores are all flashing red lights that something bad is coming. That goes for your customers, too, but risk information is often siloed. Creditsafe’s Matthew Debbage unpacks some findings of his company’s recent...

Banks bear the brunt of consequences for financial crimes amid a huge increase in anti-money laundering fines in 2022, making them an easy target when financial crime is suspected. But fighting fincrime isn’t the sole responsibility of banks, argues Samar Pratt of Exiger in London, who says a flawed approach allows financial crime to persist...

Data proliferation and data privacy regulatory activity across the globe have created the need for focused boardroom discussions. An underpinning to such discussions is the inextricable link between data privacy compliance and information security. Protiviti’s Jim DeLoach shares eight questions companies need to answer in their pursuit of data privacy compliance and best practices. While...

Recent courtroom and legislative action in Europe will likely have ripple effects around the world for companies subject to regulations like the UK and EU GDPR. Jonathan Armstrong and André Bywater of Cordery explore the developments. Last year, the UK government introduced a legislative proposal to change the UK privacy/data protection regime (which essentially consists...

Simply knowing your customer isn’t enough anymore; to keep pace with modern threats, perpetual know-your-customer practices will enable organizations to manage risk. Moody’s Keith Berry tells companies everything they need to know about pKYC and argues for a mindset-shift in many organizations. Organizations have to protect themselves from fluctuating risk levels and new financial crime...

By adding incentives to encourage self-disclosure of corporate misconduct, the DOJ signaled a major change in its approach. And while many of the changes are welcome, Blank Rome’s Inbal P. Garrity and Amelia Clegg wonder if the revisions are sweet enough. The DOJ’s Criminal Division may not have had a change of heart when it...

OpenAI’s splashy ChatGPT rollout has generated untold amounts of text, both directly and indirectly. While much of what’s been written so far has been about creative work, which some fear will be completely upended by ChatGPT, CCI’s copy chief, Jennifer L. Gaskin, looks at how generative AI tools will change the corporate integrity landscape. Like...

New guidance from the DOJ on what makes an effective compliance program should be mandatory reading for every corporate integrity professional. Living Your Best Compliance life columnist Mary Shirley shares her thoughts on upshots of the new guidance. This month kicked off with an exciting development for informing corporate compliance programs, the release of an...

The SEC has long relied on whistleblowers to enforce securities law, often making it worth their while to the tune of as much as 30% of a monetary sanction. Attorney Katherine Krems shares her insights on how Activision’s recent SEC settlement provides a lesson in what not to do. On Feb. 3, the SEC announced...

In many organizations, diversity and inclusion efforts are enterprise-wide, but a survey by legal and compliance recruiter BarkerGilmore found that most companies aren’t using broad strategies to increase the diversity of their in-house legal teams. Still, despite the fact that about 37% of those surveyed say their companies have no strategy in place regarding DEI...

A C-suite title on your business card doesn’t just come with a cushy corner office. Since January’s blockbuster Delaware Chancery Court decision regarding toxic behavior at McDonald’s, it could also mean that you’ll bear the same oversight duty traditionally reserved for members of the board of directors. Bart M. Schwartz of Guidepost Solutions is currently...

For compliance departments that need to do more with less, it’s tempting to lean into automated systems. Compliance and ethics consultant and author Vera Cherepanova warns that focusing on numbers — and not people — can cause more damage in the long run. With compliance teams around the world dealing with cost-cutting edicts from their...

Facing a potential recession and anti-ESG headwinds may have smaller financial institutions thinking about budget cuts aimed at sustainability efforts. FTI Consulting’s Evelyn Basham and Enrique Ubarri explore what small and mid-sized banks and other financial institutions need to know about ESG in 2023 and beyond. Financial institutions of all sizes are in the midst...

Despite the proliferation of laws aimed at fighting bribery and corruption, a recent international report found that most countries are failing to stop corruption. How can organizations ensure they’re doing their part? Certa’s Jag Lamba offers nine signs that your company’s ABAC program is on the right track. Anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) laws and standards...

There's no shortage of measures designed to safeguard human rights across the globe, but Washington, London and Brussels have yet to fully see eye-to-eye on what entities to target. Vincent Gaudel from LexisNexis Risk Solutions sets the stage for what to expect in the evolution of thematic human rights sanctions. Combating human rights violations and...