In this 5-part podcast series I visit with Eric Feldman, Senior Vice President of AMI. We look at the Department of Justice (DOJ) Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, (the “2019 Guidance”), which was released in April 2019. Over the next five podcasts we will explore what the 2019 Guidance changes are from the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Program (2017 Guidance), released in February 2017, the structure and emphasis of the 2019 Guidance and what it means for the compliance practitioner going forward.
In this first episode, we begin with some of Feldman’s observations. The 2019 Guidance asks three fundamental questions prosecutor should ask; all other questions are divided into these categories: (1) “Is the corporation’s compliance program well designed”; (2) “Is the program being applied earnestly and in good faith?” In other words, is the program being implemented effectively? Is it real? and (3) “Does the corporation’s compliance program work” in practice? Feldman expanded on these three basic questions, noting in the first question, the query is “whether it’s well designed and there is no a rigid formula.”