No Result
View All Result
SUBSCRIBE | NO FEES, NO PAYWALLS
MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION
NEWSLETTER
Corporate Compliance Insights
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Explore Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Well-Being at Work
    • Leadership and Career
    • Opinion
  • Vendor News
  • Career Connection
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Library
    • Whitepapers & Reports
    • eBooks
    • CCI Press & Compliance Bookshelf
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Explore Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Well-Being at Work
    • Leadership and Career
    • Opinion
  • Vendor News
  • Career Connection
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Library
    • Whitepapers & Reports
    • eBooks
    • CCI Press & Compliance Bookshelf
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
Corporate Compliance Insights
Home Featured

How Do Monitors Work?

Potential Issues in Corporate Monitorships, Part 3

by Jay Rosen
June 19, 2019
in Featured
one size does not fit all tag

Jay Rosen continues a weekly series on common questions about and issues with corporate monitorships. Here, he discusses the ins and outs of a monitor’s role.

There are variety of tasks and roles a monitor takes on when engaging in an independent monitorship. A monitor should understand the types of approaches they will take to make an organization more compliant, starting with understanding the work plan.

Many times, the monitor must push the organization along by getting buy-in and building consensus.

Finally, there should be an awareness of helping the company being compliant in the future.

Understanding the Mission of the Monitorship

The starting point is understanding what the mission of the monitorship is. Monitors really begin at the beginning. Sometimes we meet separately with the government agency to get an appreciation and understanding as to why they think things have reached this point. We need to know what they see as the existing problems in the company, as well as what they see as the problems in the industry. And then, of course, we do the same thing with the company. Such meetings could also include outside counsel, who have been living with whatever the precipitating cause or problem is that led to the settlement with the government or the investigation. They’ve lived with it for years. And in many cases, by the way, the company has already remediated significant portions of the problem.

Paper or Real Program?

A monitor should have a focus on a particular goal and a particular set of tasks, but from there, it is very much a “people” exercise. It is often made obvious relatively early on in the process whether the company has a paper program or real program. A monitor should spend time at the higher levels of the company and at the middle and lower levels of the company. Some of the specific techniques can be one-on-one interviews, site visits to specific offices and using focus groups, gathering people at the same level so we don’t get middle managers and upper managers together in one room.

It is critical that both company management and the regulators not be surprised by a finding. This means the monitor (and team) should literally pore through the company to come up with an honest final assessment or report for the organization. It is important to give the company credit where it has remediated or demonstrated improvement, and this means emphasizing to the government the wins a company’s compliance program may have sustained.

One Size Does Not Fit All

In monitorships, as with compliance programs in general, one size does not fit all.

A monitor should test whether there is sufficient training on the code of conduct, compliance policies and procedures and other issues, such as a conflicts of interest policy. There should also be inquiries into hotline overview and use. Additionally, the monitor may offer recommendations to senior management from what he or she gleans in employee interviews.

A Compliance Moment and Baseball Tickets

Here is a live example from one of AMI’s past engagements; it was around having a compliance moment once per week at company meetings. The organization was an engineering company, and they took safety very seriously, opening each company meeting with a safety moment. This led to the suggestion of opening meetings with a compliance moment, which employees used not simply to state ethics and compliance issues, but to describe situations they faced daily.

A situation arose where an employee was offered tickets to a baseball game by a vendor. The company policy on conflicts of interest prevented the employee from accepting the tickets, and he felt conflicted because he wanted to go to the game. More importantly, he did not know what to tell the vendor to make them understand he could not accept the tickets.

Through the dialogue that followed in the course of this compliance moment in the company meeting, the company employees felt they had an opportunity to be part of the process.

This demonstrated that ethics and compliance is not something imposed on them, but something that is part of their job and their responsibility.

Working with Diverse Groups and Benchmarks

A monitor must literally work with groups as diverse as the board of directors and the employees on the shop floor. It is incumbent upon the monitor to use a variety of tactics and techniques to fulfill the mission. An independent and experienced monitor is required to use a variety of tools to help an organization move forward with a compliance regime. A monitor should also have the experience to come in and not only look at how your company is doing, but also benchmark against what is happening internally and across other industries.

In the final analysis, the company is going to have a set of recommendations to follow and an expectation that when the process is finished (we will speak about continuous improvement in a future blog), the company is going to have a shiny, new, state-of-the-art compliance and ethics program, and the monitor will have contributed to making this a better, more resilient and compliant business.


In case you missed the earlier installments of this ongoing series, please see the links below.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Monitors But Were Afraid to Ask

Part 1: Corporate Monitorship 101: Who Are They, and What Can You Expect?

Part 2: What is a Post-Resolution Monitorship?

Part 3: What is the Power of a Pre-Settlement Monitorship?

Part 4: What Issues Should a Company Consider When Hiring a Corporate Monitor?

Part 5: How Much Will a Corporate Monitorship Cost?

Potential Issues in Corporate Monitorships

Part 1: What are the Fears and Concerns of Working with a Monitor?

Part 2: What is the Impact of Monitors?


Tags: Monitoring
Previous Post

With Redefined Risks, GCs Must Redefine Their Role

Next Post

CCPA Readiness Survey: Invest in Privacy at Scale

Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen is Vice President, Business Development and Monitoring Specialist at Affiliated Monitors, Inc., the first company in the U.S. to focus on providing independent integrity monitoring and assessment services across a wide range of regulated industries and professions. Jay previously headed up Merrill Brink’s FCPA Investigations and Ethics and Compliance translation group. He has over eight years of experience assisting clients on cross-border investigations, as well as helping them localize their code of conduct and other mission-critical English documents for their global colleagues. For almost three years, Jay has co-hosted the #1 weekly FCPA podcast, “This Week in FCPA,” with Tom Fox. Tom and Jay recently launched a second podcast, “Popcorn and Compliance,” and Jay is also a commentator on the biweekly podcast, “Everything Compliance,” with Jonathan Armstrong, Tom Fox, Sarah Hadden, Matt Kelly and Mike Volkov.

Related Posts

DOJ increasing monitorships

DOJ Signals Expanded Use of Independent Monitors for Corporate Criminal Enforcement

by Womble Bond Dickinson
June 8, 2022

The DOJ indicates that it will increase the use of monitors in corporate criminal enforcement; what does that mean for...

Demonstrators protest outside amazon investment firm

Employee Surveillance Can Turn Your Office Dystopian If You Don’t Reciprocate Transparency and Security

by Rob Shavell
December 7, 2021

Demonstrators protest outside amazon investment firm Remote employee monitoring is ubiquitous — and likely here to stay. However, using monitoring...

high-voltage power lines with sunset in the background

IPKeys Power Partners Announces New Grid Cybersecurity Breakthrough

by Corporate Compliance Insights
September 8, 2021

Addresses multibillion-dollar cybersecurity convergence challenges of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) & compliance facing utilities & grid operators Tinton Falls, NJ...

sparkles grey background with a winners cup

Eventus Systems Wins Trade Surveillance Product of the Year in 2021 Risk Technology Awards

by Corporate Compliance Insights
July 27, 2021

AUSTIN, Texas and LONDON (July 27, 2021) – Eventus Systems, Inc., a leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and...

Next Post
symbol of law and justice with California State Flag on laptop

CCPA Readiness Survey: Invest in Privacy at Scale

Compliance Job Interview Q&A

Jump to a Topic

AML Anti-Bribery Anti-Corruption Artificial Intelligence (AI) Automation Banking Board of Directors Board Risk Oversight Business Continuity Planning California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Code of Conduct Communications Management Corporate Culture COVID-19 Cryptocurrency Culture of Ethics Cybercrime Cyber Risk Data Analytics Data Breach Data Governance DOJ Download Due Diligence Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) ESG FCPA Enforcement Actions Financial Crime Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) GDPR HIPAA Know Your Customer (KYC) Machine Learning Monitoring RegTech Reputation Risk Risk Assessment SEC Social Media Risk Supply Chain Technology Third Party Risk Management Tone at the Top Training Whistleblowing
No Result
View All Result

Privacy Policy

Founded in 2010, CCI is the web’s premier global independent news source for compliance, ethics, risk and information security. 

Got a news tip? Get in touch. Want a weekly round-up in your inbox? Sign up for free. No subscription fees, no paywalls. 

Follow Us

Browse Topics:

  • CCI Press
  • Compliance
  • Compliance Podcasts
  • Cybersecurity
  • Data Privacy
  • eBooks Published by CCI
  • Ethics
  • FCPA
  • Featured
  • Financial Services
  • Fraud
  • Governance
  • GRC Vendor News
  • HR Compliance
  • Internal Audit
  • Leadership and Career
  • On Demand Webinars
  • Opinion
  • Resource Library
  • Risk
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Well-Being
  • Whitepapers

© 2022 Corporate Compliance Insights

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Explore Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Well-Being at Work
    • Leadership and Career
    • Opinion
  • Vendor News
  • Career Connection
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Library
    • Whitepapers & Reports
    • eBooks
    • CCI Press & Compliance Bookshelf
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe

© 2022 Corporate Compliance Insights

Welcome to CCI. This site uses cookies. Please click OK to accept. Privacy Policy
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT