Compliance

While many ESG trends continued in 2021, the past 12 months also saw landmark events, accelerating regulatory attention and a heightened public awareness not present in previous years. CCI editors provide their rundown of the top ESG articles of 2021 below. In 2021, it sometimes felt as if ESG had transformed from a cause to a sort of corporate lifestyle...

A new survey of decision-makers across Europe has revealed that the need to rethink tools and processes is a key priority for audit and compliance leaders. Research by Sinequa, an enterprise search engine platform, reveals that 85 percent of compliance and audit workers in large organizations in Europe consider access to information to be difficult or fair — at best....

Coalitions of stakeholders in the business world agree that combating climate change stands as a crucial long-term measure. But those actions are next-to-moot if investors can't assess and benchmark their effects with standard sustainability reporting. In a context in which society is demanding initiatives to combat climate change, the debate on corporate sustainability reporting is more pressing than ever. The...

The Fifth Circuit Court has permanently blocked the OSHA vaccinate-or-test ETS. But judicial review continues. In the meantime, businesses can do little more than educate themselves on the matter. On November 4, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that requires businesses that employ 100 or more employees to either mandate their workforce...

As evidenced by the Nigerian port systems, corruption often arises from inefficient systems. Inter-agency coordination and process modernization can curb corruption to a significant extent.

The deadline for E.U. member states to transpose the Whistleblower Protection Directive into national laws is Dec. 17, 2021. Once the local whistleblowing laws have been passed, they will become applicable to all organizations with more than 250 employees of that specific E.U. member state. Denmark and Sweden have already issued new whistleblowing acts, more members intend to comply with...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has already sent businesses more climate-related communications this year than it did over the course of the last decade. Kirkland Ellis attorneys say that's just a preview for what is yet to come.

Updated enforcement priorities and guidance on facilitating ransomware payments remind companies of all types to establish holistic AML policies and programs — and revisit them as events warrant, write Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr partner Joe Valenti and associate Christie McGuinness. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) this summer announced America’s first government-wide priorities list for anti-money laundering and countering...

The International Bar Association (IBA) COVID-19 Legal Policy Task Force has released a report detailing the pandemic’s impact in key legal areas and making concrete actionable recommendations to improve pandemic management in the future. The task force examined the impact of the pandemic on international legal systems, recognized the successes and failings of those systems in dealing with the outbreak...

New forced-labor requirements related to Xinjiang and a three-fold increase in enforcement by U.S. Customs have raised the risk of supply chain disruptions and penalties for U.S. importers. How should companies go about proving the negative: that their supply chains are forced-labor free?

Workplace technology provider Vault's first-ever "Trust Gap Report" has determined that despite a renewed awareness of and interest in preventing workplace misconduct, incidents like bullying and harassment remain common at offices in the U.S. and the U.K. Vault's survey of 2,000 office workers in the two countries found that about half of office workers in the two countries have personally...

Rapid adoption of collaboration tools during pandemic helped ensure employees and customers in financial services industry were connected, but research reveals that quick uptake of these platforms elevates compliance risk in regulated industries like finance. More than eight in 10 financial services executives say their companies are turning off key productivity and usability features of collaboration platforms like Zoom, Microsoft...