Saturday, April 17, 2021
Corporate Compliance Insights
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Leadership and Career
  • Vendor News
  • Jobs
    • Compliance & Risk
    • Information Security
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Submit an Event
  • Downloads
    • eBooks
    • Whitepapers
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Leadership and Career
  • Vendor News
  • Jobs
    • Compliance & Risk
    • Information Security
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Submit an Event
  • Downloads
    • eBooks
    • Whitepapers
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
Corporate Compliance Insights
Home FCPA

Using External Resources to Bolster Compliance Programs

Compliance Strategies Under the Benczkowski Memo and New DOJ 2018 Policy Announcements, Part 3

by Jay Rosen
January 29, 2020
in FCPA, Featured
concept of improvement, illustration of business team lifting red arrow into climbing position

Jay Rosen continues looking at the DOJ announcements over the past several years, as well as the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, announced in November 2017, to consider how companies can use this information externally to bolster their compliance programs.

There are several areas from the DOJ guidance that make the use of external resources more impactful for a corporate compliance program. Let’s consider what a company might do if it is required to self-report a violation of a law such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It might begin by bringing in a crisis management team to look at the board, board governance, management functions or very specific programs. Another area that is ripe for an external review is the company’s sales cycle, particularly if it uses third parties. Third parties are still recognized as one of the highest risks under the FCPA and in 2018, 93 percent of all enforcement actions involved third parties.

Such an external investigation can include some of the basics, like adequate due diligence and fulfilling internal requirements; by using an external subject matter expert, a company can really drill down into a program to look at subcontractors and other second-, third- and fourth-level contractors. Using an external resource in these areas can help a company based upon the roadmap laid out in the Benczkowski Memo.

Another area where an external resource in compliance can be most helpful is in establishing credibility with regulators. An external resource may deal with the regulators on a variety of matters and may have a well of credibility – a level of rapport with the DOJ that a company that is never or seldom in front of the DOJ may not have going into the process.

Regulators may also see the external resource as bringing another set of eyes to a matter for review.

Once you start coordinating with a government agency and you voluntarily decide to report something, you may be waiving the attorney-client privilege. Under this new guidance, you may have to cooperate fully and identify names and individuals within the company.

Moreover, your organization will more than likely have to produce documents. Not only is document security a key issue with regulators, but the same can be said for the current situation that many companies now find themselves in with multi-jurisdictional investigations. This can also hold true if there are multiple agencies involved, each of which with their own legal or regulatory focus. An external recourse can be invaluable in getting an organization through these issues. All of these situations might well lead to multiple settlements with multiple regulators. Navigating through all of this may be beyond the ability of many U.S. companies.

Another area that was certainly emphasized by the DOJ in 2018 was the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) front, particularly in the pre-acquisition phase. In July 2018, the DOJ formalized the Safe Harbor provision first articulated in 2012 FCPA Guidance around companies that performed an appropriate level of pre-acquisition due diligence and then engaged in post-acquisition integration, a forensic FCPA review, self-disclosure and remediation if required. This informal Safe Harbor is now written into the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy.

The DOJ wants you to show you knew not only what you were acquiring from the commercial perspective, but also from the compliance side.

You need to look at whether or not the company has a variety of compliance program indicia: Does it have a compliance program? Does it have a hotline program? Are there complaints to the hotline? Are there things that are percolating below the surface that you are not going to see in just looking at dollars? Does it have good compliance controls?

Beyond this, the DOJ will be looking at your integration plan based upon your pre-acquisition due diligence. Finally, have you fully implemented the acquired entity into your company?

Please join me next week for part four, when I explore how companies can use their compliance programs as both a sword and shield.

 


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, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Potential Issues in Corporate Monitorships

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Suspension and Debarment in Monitoring

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Monitoring in the Health Care Sector

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

The Basics of Corporate Culture

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Monitoring in an M&A Context

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Affiliated Monitors: 15 Years of Independent Monitoring Excellence

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Compliance Strategies Under the Benczkowski Memo and New DOJ 2018 Policy Announcements

Part 1, Part 2


Tags: DOJfcpa enforcement actions
Previous Post

The Importance of Sponsorship for the Compliance Professional

Next Post

What I Wish I’d Known Before Joining Compliance

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

Business professionals stand in silhouette in a conference room.

How Far Will You Go?

April 16, 2021
allustration of a man looking at a moon through a telescope

Periodic Reporting for Public Companies in 2021: What Lies Ahead

April 14, 2021
A view of the Veriff mobile app

Estonian Identity Verification Service Veriff Raises $69M in Series B Led by IVP and Accel

April 13, 2021
President Joe Biden.

The Biden Administration Is Ramping Up Numerous Cross-Border Enforcements. Compliance Teams Should Take Note.

April 13, 2021
Next Post
What I Wish I’d Known Before Joining Compliance

What I Wish I’d Known Before Joining Compliance

2Behavox and CCI webinar: Power of Ai in F
OneTrust offers download to demonstrate privacy management leadership
Top 10 Risk and Compliance Trends

Jump to a Topic:

anti-corruption anti-money laundering/AML Artificial Intelligence/A.I. automation banks board of directors board risk oversight bribery CCPA/California Consumer Privacy Act Cloud Compliance communications management Coronavirus/COVID-19 corporate culture crisis management culture of ethics cyber crime cyber risk data analytics data breach data governance decision-making diversity DOJ due diligence ESG fcpa enforcement actions financial crime GDPR GRC HIPAA information security KYC machine learning monitoring regtech reputation risk risk assessment Sanctions SEC social media risk technology third party risk management tone at the top training whistleblowing
No Result
View All Result

Privacy Policy

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS Feed

Category

  • CCI Press
  • Compliance
  • Compliance Podcasts
  • Cybersecurity
  • Data Privacy
  • eBooks
  • 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
  • Whitepapers

© 2021 Corporate Compliance Insights

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • Writing for CCI
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Leadership and Career
  • Vendor News
  • Jobs
    • Compliance & Risk
    • Information Security
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Submit an Event
  • Downloads
    • eBooks
    • Whitepapers
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Subscribe

© 2021 Corporate Compliance Insights