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Everything Compliance

Episode 65, the End of Summer edition


Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have the full quintet of Jonathan Armstrong, Jay Rosen, Matt Kelly, Jonathan Marks and Mike Volkov for a potpourri of discussions and ending with a veritable mélange of rants and shouts outs.

  1. Jonathan Armstrong critiques the recent Aven decision which every compliance practitioner needs to be cognizant of going forward. Armstrong shouts out Abache Tundy, a Nigerian astronaut stranded on the Moon, who is attempting to Crowd Source a rescue mission home.
  2. Jay Rosen considers recent criminal charges brought by the DOJ and the first Opinion Release in 6 years. Jay rants about the Facebook plan to fight Trump’s fake news posting, which he believes is over 3.5 years too late.
  3. Matt Kelly considers the actions by the Postal Service execs to gut US mail service leading up the election, from the compliance perspective. Matt rants about Curt Schilling and his ill-advised business decisions off the field.
  4. Mike Volkov reviews the Business Roundtable’s Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation at the one-year anniversary of it release. He shouts out to Steve Bannon, who is looking at 51-63 months of jail time for fraud.
  5. Jonathan Marks considers the IIA for beginning the discussion to reconfigure its 3 Lines of Defense but says it does not go far enough. He rants about the unfairness of the criminal justice system, focusing on the Lori Laughlin sentence.
  6. Tom Fox shouts out to the employees of the German regulator BaFin who set up an investment pool for Wirecard, a company they were allegedly regulating. 

The members of the Everything Compliance are:

  • Jay Rosen– Jay is Vice President, Business Development Corporate Monitoring at Affiliated Monitors. Rosen can be reached at JRosen@affiliatedmonitors.com
  • Mike Volkov – One of the top FCPA commentators and practitioners around and the Chief Executive Officer of The Volkov Law Group, LLC. Volkov can be reached at mvolkov@volkovlawgroup.com
  • Matt Kelly – Founder and CEO of Radical Compliance. Kelly can be reached at mkelly@radicalcompliance.com
  • Jonathan Armstrong –is our UK colleague, who is an experienced data privacy/data protection lawyer with Cordery in London. Armstrong can be reached at armstrong@corderycompliance.com
  • Jonathan Marks is Partner, Firm Practice Leader – Global Forensic, Compliance & Integrity Services at Baker Tilly. Marks can be reached at marks@bakertilly.com

The host and producer (and sometime panelist) of Everything Compliance is Tom Fox the Compliance Evangelist. Everything Compliance is a part of the Compliance Podcast Network. He can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com

Categories
Daily Compliance News

September 17, 2020-the Et Tu BP edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • House report blasts both Boeing and FAA. (NYT)
  • GOP lawmakers blast TikTok sale. (WSJ)
  • Companies now prioritizing keeping talent. (WSJ)
  • Et tu BP? (Houston Chronicle)
Categories
The Ethics Movement

Converge20-Rashmi Airan- Why Good People do Bad Things?

CONVERGE is in its 5th year of bringing together the world’s leading companies for 2 days of dynamic speakers, thought-provoking breakout sessions, and opportunities to connect with like-minded professionals. This year the conference has gone virtual. You will leave the conference with new resources and best practices allowing you to continue the hard work of driving ethics to the center of your business. In today’s episode I visit with Rashimi Airan. We visit about her presentation at Converge20 on Why Good People do Bad Things.
Rashmi’s story is well-known. Sucessful lawyer and businesswoman who went to prison for bank fraud. She is now determined to create a culture of conversation around ethics, ethical decision making, human behavior, and reputational risk into all aspects of our lives.  Rashmi redefines what it means to be successful and the need for integrity and emotional intelligence in a continually evolving global culture.Find out more as Don explores these and other issues on this panel. For more registration and information on Converge20, click here.

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The Affiliated Monitors Expert Podcast

Final Reflections on 15 Years


In this episode, I ask DiCianni to reflect on where AMI has been, where it may be going and what he is most proud of on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the founding of AMI. DiCianni identified a couple of themes. One has been the independence and integrity of AMI throughout its history. DiCianni stated, this has  “been something that has been very conscious on our part, to maintain our independence. We are not a law firm so we don’t compete with other law firms. We’re not investigators, so we’re not doing the legwork part of the investigation. We are not expert witnesses. We have stayed in, I’ll call it, our swim lanes.” This has allowed AMI to focus on one thing and one thing only, which is to provide “great independent monitoring services and to providing proactive assessments that use the skills that we’ve learned as monitors, to meet regulatory requirements.” This  “professionalism, integrity, independence, which is in our bloodstream has helped us greatly.” The second has been  the evolution in the thinking of the regulators around the role of an independent monitor. When the role began in the past decade it was very much about regulatory compliance. This evolved to legal compliance, eventually moving to ethics-based compliance. Now with the Benczkowski Memo, it is proactive compliance.
We concluded by me asking DiCianni what he was most proud of from the creation of AMI in 2004 up through the 15th anniversary. He said there were three things. The first is that he was able to take an idea, the need for an independent monitor, and germinate it into an ongoing, successful and viable business concern. The second was through the work of AMI, DiCianni has helped not only companies become more robust around ethics and compliance but AMI has helped them become better run organizations. He said, “the fact that we really have helped a lot of companies. We’ve just wrapped up a few matters, and we get these unsolicited comments by our clients and when they say you’ve made, we didn’t want to have a monitor, but you made us a better company. That makes you feel great. And when you do that, that’s been very fulfilling.” The final thing that DiCianni mentioned was the people of AMI. He said, “The last thing that I’m proud of is that I have a remarkable team of people. I have a great team of people dedicated and passionate about the work that we do. So that makes me very proud. We never know what the next day is going to bring. And so there’s a level of uncertainty, which is a good thing because you never know what the next case could be. So again, Tom, it’s been a great 15 years and I’m really looking forward to more of this.”

Categories
Innovation in Compliance

Exiger on the Evolution in Supplier Compliance in COVID – Spotlight on Spotlight on Federal Government and Supply Chains with Carrie Wibben and Vishnu Anatatmula


Welcome to a special five-part podcast series, sponsored by Exiger, on topics From Third-Party Risk Management to Supply Chain Risk Management: Exiger on the Evolution in Supplier Compliance in COVID. Exiger was founded to fight financial crime, fraud and terrorist financing by introducing technology-enabled solutions to the market’s biggest supply chain, risk, investigation, litigation, and compliance challenges. A global authority on risk and compliance, Exiger serves the world’s largest banks, Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies and regulators. During this series, we will put a spotlight on Financial Institutions with Tara Loftus and Samar Pratt; focus on corporations with Aaron Narva and George ‘Ren’ McEachern; consider the Federal Government and Supply Chains with Carrie Wibben and Vishnu Anantatmula; review the pillars of good compliance with Brandon Daniels and Carrie Wibben; and end with a review of third-party risk management solutions with Erika Peters and Skyler Chi.
In Part 3, we put a spotlight on Federal Government and Supply Chains. In this exploration I am joined by Carrie Wibben and Vishnu Anatatmula. Wibben is a Senior Vice President, National Security & Intelligence, based in Exiger’s McLean office. As the former Deputy Director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), Carrie joins Exiger following a distinguished career in homeland defense spanning various government agencies – including the US Department of Defense, the Executive Office of the President, and the Special Security Directorate. Anatatmula is a Senior Account Manager in Exiger Federal Solutions based in the company’s Tysons Corner office. His team is focused on OSD Acquisition and Sustainment, delivering critical time-sensitive assessments to Senior DoD Executives that facilitate informed decisions on large investments in the Pharmaceutical Industry and provide heavily researched solutions for illuminating technology products, programs, and sectors.
Join us tomorrow where we review the pillars of good compliance.
For more information on Exiger, click here.
For more information on Exiger’s government services, click here.
For more information on Carrie Wibben, click here.

Categories
Compliance and Coronavirus

Hugh Bigwood on Coronavirus as an Opportunity


As the Voice of Compliance, I wanted to start a podcast which will help to bring both clarity and sanity to the compliance practitioner and compliance profession during this worldwide health and healthcare crisis. In this episode, I visit with Hugh Bigwood, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at EverCare.
Some of the topics include:

  • How risks have been turned upside down during Covid-19.
  • Why is storytelling even more important now?
  • The time is now for resetting your compliance focus and priorities.
  • You have a downturn in reporting. What does it mean?
  • Always keep pushing the fundamentals.
Categories
Great Women in Compliance

The Great Women in Compliance Book Preview


Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
As many of you know, Mary and Lisa have been working on a book that will be coming out before the holidays and will be the first title from CCI Press. The “GWIC Book” (the title will be announced soon), is a compilation of submissions from women in compliance sharing wit, wisdom and experiences from their work and lives.
This process was new to Mary and Lisa, and they provide some insight into the process of being a first-time author up until this point. They talk about the importance of having a good publisher and editor as they had with Sarah Hadden of CCI Press, and how they were guided and supported through this process. They also talk about how the GWIC Book is a companion to the podcast, and that it is about women and their experiences in ethics and compliance as opposed to substantive guides and information.
They also talk about their biggest surprises, what they learned about themselves and the GWIC community (spoiler alert: it reinforced what an enthusiastic and supportive community we have); and a little bit about the book release and launch events.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.

Categories
Compliance Into the Weeds

Herbalife FCPA Enforcement Action


Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast which takes a deep dive into a compliance related topic, literally going into the weeds to more fully explore a subject. In this episode Matt and Tom go into the weeds to look the recently announced Herbalife FCPA enforcement action. Some of the issues we consider are:

  • Why were the facts so egregious?
  • How high up in the organization did the corruption scheme go?
  • Why was the Board’s performance so abysmal?
  • Was the head of Internal Audit in on the bribery scheme?
  • What was the role of short-sellers in bringing this massive fraud to light?

Resources
See Matt’s blog posts on Radical Compliance
Herbalife Pays $123M on FCPA Charges 
See Tom’s 3-part blog post series on the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog
The Herbalife FCPA Enforcement Action, Part 1
The Herbalife FCPA Enforcement Action, Part 2
The Herbalife FCPA Enforcement Action, Part 3

Categories
Daily Compliance News

September 16, 2020-the Bad Actor edition

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Nursing homes run as Ponzi scheme. (NYT)
  • DOJ joins investigation into Tesla. (WSJ)
  • Bribery of GM Board member alleged. (WSJ)
  • NLRB subpoenaed for COIs? (WaPo)
Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

Internal controls for gifts, travel and entertainment


It is reasonable to expect that internal controls over gifts, travel and entertainment be designed to ensure that they satisfy the criteria as defined in company policies. These are narrow, including a definition of the dollar limit, which must not be exceeded for gifts to be permissible, coupled with some subjective criteria such as the legality of the gifts for the recipient and whether the practice is customary within the country where the gift is delivered. The question I focus on is how to enforce the policies so that employees are not free to disregard them at will?The key analysis is whether there are controls in place to enforce the policies and whether those controls are documented. There are four issues to evaluate:

  1. Is the correct level of person approving the payment/reimbursement for the gift?
  2. Are there specific controls, including signoffs, to demonstrate that the gift had a proper business purpose?
  3. Are the controls regarding gifts sufficiently preventative, rather than relying on detect controls?
  4. If controls are not followed, is that failure detected by other internal controls or the compliance protocols?

Internal controls around gifts can be used in a variety of ways in your best practices compliance program. They can certainly be used to detect an issue and perhaps even prevent an issue from becoming a full-blown FCPA violation, however, by using some of the techniques suggested you can move your compliance program to a proscriptive phase where you not only stop an issue from becoming a violation but through identification, you can move towards remediation as a part of your ongoing compliance efforts. The bottom line is good internal controls make for good business processes; if you can move your compliance program’s internal controls forward, you can help make them a part of your financial controls and thereby have a better run company. 
Three key takeaways:

  1. Gifts, travel and entertainment compliance internal controls are low hanging fruit, pick them.
  2. Compliance internal controls can be both detect and prevent controls.
  3. Good compliance internal controls are good for business.