In today’s edition of Sunday Book Review:
- This Little Family by Inès Bayard,
- Nothing Can Hurt You by Nicola Maye Goldberg
- The Patient by Jasper DeWitt
- You Again by Debra Jo Immergut
Author: admin
In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
- Massive fraud in Ireland. (The Irish Times)
- J&J reprehensible in court. (Fierce Pharma)
- A second act for Jeff Skilling? (Houston Chronicle)
- Who needs to review bank statements? (FT)
As Wirecard seems to be missing $2bn, Texas Covid-19 cases explode as self-isolating Tom and self-distancing Jay are back to consider some of the week’s top compliance articles and stories on This Week in FCPA.
- Supreme Court rules on profit disgorgement. Harry Cassin breaks the story in the FCPA Blog. Tom and Matt Kelly discuss in this week’s Compliance into the Weeds. Mengqi Sun opines it could shrink whistleblower awards, on the WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal.
- What are 5 ways to use a risk assessment? Jeff Kaplan in the FCPA Blog.
- Is the SEC on a rampage around internal controls? Bill Steinman thinks so, in the FCPA Blog.
- What are some of the problems with foreign issuers? Alissa Kole Amico on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
- Covid-19 issues and compliance, all on CCI. David England on 3rd Party Risk Management; Chris Jeffrey on your control environment; and Casey Pozarowszczky on fraud risk.
- What do global ABC enforcement agencies look like? Jon Rausch explores on Dipping Through Geometries.
- Wirecard is the first and biggest fraud of the 20’s. Reports in the WSJ-CEO Arrested & Missing $2bn, NYT-CEO Resigns, FT-the Reckoning.
- Novartis settles massive FCPA enforcement action. WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal.
- Interested in moving to the CCO chair? Check out my latest podcast series The Compliance Lifewhere I interview one CCO type for a month on their journey to the CCO chair and beyond. In on this month’s edition I visit with Ryan Rabalais. In this concluding Part 4, he reflects on the role of coprorate culture. The Compliance Life is now available on iTunes.
- On Compliance and Coronavirus this week, a week of AMI: Rod Grandon on government bailouts and PPP compliance issues; Jesse Caplan on health care issues during crisis; Dionne Lomax joins me to M&A issues that may be coming down the road. Compliance and Coronavirus is available on iTunes here.
- On the Compliance Podcast Network, on 31 Days to a More Effective Compliance Program, this month’s topic has been internal reporting and investigations. This week’s offerings: Monday-How an investigation informs remediation; Tuesday-Asking some tough questions; Wednesday-Board investigative protocols; Thursday– how to have a successful Board investigation; Friday– how the Yates Memo changed investigations. Note 31 Days to a More Effective Compliance Program now has its own iTunes channel.
- Join Tom and Convercent’s Philip Winterburn to look at hotline reporting data during Covid-19 and what it means for compliance practitioners going forward. Tuesday June 30 at 10 AM CT. Registration and information are available here. It’s free.
Tom Fox is the Compliance Evangelist and can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Jay Rosen is Mr. Monitor and can be reached at jrosen@affiliatedmonitors.com.
In September 2015, Sally Yates, then Assistant Attorney General, announced the Memo that bears her name (Yates Memo), saying, “we have revised our policy guidance to require that if a company wants any credit for cooperation, any credit at all, it must identify all individuals involved in the wrongdoing, regardless of their position, status or seniority in the company and provide all relevant facts about their misconduct. It’s all or nothing. No more picking and choosing what gets disclosed. No more partial credit for cooperation that doesn’t include information about individuals.” This statement tied directly into the first point of the Yates Memo, which stated, “To be eligible for any cooperation credit, corporations must provide to the Department all relevant facts about the individuals involved in corporate misconduct.”
More than three years after the announcement of the Yates Memo, the DOJ modified this course slightly. In 2018, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein relaxed the rigid approach required by the Yates Memo and inserting more flexibility and discretion to government investigators. Rosenstein said that the DOJ would continue to focus on individuals in its white-collar investigations, but he ended the Yates Memo’s approach requiring ALL relevant facts to be turned over to the DOJ. This permitted corporations to receive credit for their cooperation if they identify individuals who were significantly involved in or caused the criminal conduct and permitted greater flexibility and discretion in awarding cooperation credit in civil cases.
Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions echoed these concepts in his Keynote remarks at the Ethics and Compliance Initiative in April 2017. He reiterated that the DOJ would focus on individual criminal misconduct in the context of enforcing the FCPA. This continued emphasis will mean that there is even more pressure on corporate compliance programs to get it right and get it right sooner rather than later.
Three key takeaways:
- What is a Yates binder?
- While the Yates Memo required you to hand over ALL evidence, the Rosenstein Corollary added flexibility.
- Senior management is now in the firing line.
Where does creativity fit into compliance? In more places than you think. Problem-solving, accountability, communication, and connection – they all take creativity. Join Tom Fox and Ronnie Feldman on Creativity and Compliance, part of the Compliance Podcast Network. In this show, we discuss how to use your communications to drive a speak up culture.
Some of the highlights include:
- What is a Speak Up Culture?
- Define it as creating a social environment where employees feel comfortable speaking up to ask questions and report concerns and they know the options for doing that.
- Why is it so difficult to achieve?
- Intertwine it with training – which means its infrequent
- It’s usually boring and not particularly creative – dull posters
- They make it “inspirational” which often comes off as preachy or inauthentic
- Or perhaps they do a campaign but that campaign is once a year for a few weeks or worse, every other year.
- This is largely ineffective
- We’ve all heard the excuses.
- Grew up with – It’s not cool to tattle. Don’t be a snitch
- Nothing will happen anyway
- Someone else will probably take care of it
- I don’t want to get anyone in trouble
- I’m a no drama llama
- THEREFORE – you have to actually reverse this kind of thinking, which takes time.
- How can you establish trust?
- Comms are more important than training – continually promote and do so creatively so people pay attention and remember.
- Transparency – share what happens – in aggregate. Tell stories.
- Share the mechanics of the process
- Make personal connections – you and your team need face time
- Listen Up Culture – provide skills and resources for management – we do improv training to support that
- Can you do this in the new WFH environment?
- Sure. Comms are even more important.
- Commercials during zoom meetings
- Stories – discussion groups
- Talk Shows & Podcasts – to get your face out there, answering questions.
- Sure. Comms are even more important.
Resources:
Ronnie Feldman (LinkedIn)
Learnings & Entertainments (LinkedIn)
Ronnie Feldman (Twitter)
Learnings & Entertainments (Website)
60-Second Communication & Awareness Shorts – A variety of short, customizable, quick-hitter “commercials” including songs & jingles, video shorts, newsletter graphics & Gifs, and more. Promote integrity, compliance, the Code, the helpline and the E&C team as helpful advisors and coaches.
Workplace Tonight Show! Micro-learning – a library of 1-10-minute trainings and communications wrapped in the style of a late-night variety show, that explains corporate risk topics and why employees should care.
Custom Live & Digital Programing – We’ll develop programming that fits your culture and balances the seriousness of the subject matter with a more engaging delivery.
Now that you have set your Board of Directors, investigations protocol, we consider some of the key factors which will lead to the successful conclusion of a Board-led investigation. Once again, the article, “Successful Board Investigations”, offers seven considerations to lead to the successful conclusion of a Board-led investigation.
- Consider whether you need independent outside counsel.
- Consider hiring an experienced investigator to lead the internal investigation.
- Consider the need to retain outside experts.
- Analyze potential conflicts of interest at the outset and during the investigation.
- Carefully evaluate whistleblower allegations.
- Request regular updates from outside counsel, without limiting the investigation.
- Consider whether an oral report at the conclusion of the investigation is sufficient.
The authors conclude their piece by stating, “By keeping in mind the issues addressed above, the Board will be better prepared for the investigation and readily able to exercise good judgment throughout the review. A well-conducted investigation by the Board may spare the company further disruption and costs associated with follow-on investigations by the regulators, or at the very least minimize the company’s exposure.”
Three key takeaways:
- Retain the right counsel. Consider conflicts and appearance.
- Carefully evaluate all whistleblower allegations and reject retaliation.
- Consider receiving oral reports on an ongoing basis and one lengthy oral report at the end of the investigation.
Welcome to the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. This week, I visit with three Managing Directors from Affiliated Monitors about issues they are seeing around Covid-19 and the economy reopening, each from their professional perspective. In this episode I visit with Dionne Lomax on antitrust issues in mergers and acquisitions as the economy reopens and into Q3 & Q4.
Lomax is Managing Director of Antitrust and Trade Regulation at AMI. Ms. Lomax also teaches Business Law at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and co-teaches a Health Care Competition seminar at the Boston University School of Law. Prior to joining AMI, Ms. Lomax dedicated her legal career to analyzing complex business transactions from an antitrust regulatory perspective. Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Lomax served as a Trial Attorney at the DOJ’s Antitrust Division’s Health Care Task Force where she analyzed the structure and operation of PHOs and IPAs, investigated health plan mergers, and other collaborative arrangements in the health care industry. She clerked for The Honorable Clifford Scott Green in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
For more information on AMI, check out their website here.
Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have a serving of Jonathan Armstrong, Jay Rosen, Matt Kelly, and Tom Fox sitting with a veritable mélange of topics and rants/shouts outs.
- Jonathan Armstrong critiques recently released information on the good ship, UK Serious Fraud Office. He shouts out to UK footballer Markus Rash about his campaign to end child.
- Jay Rosen considers what compliance issues arise in working from home. He rants that the Trump Administration needs to free Dr. Fauci.
- Matt Kelly considers the US Supreme Court decision in Bostock and what it means for compliance professionals. He shouts out to the new CEO of Wirecard, named 24 hours after taking over the CCO chair at the embattled company.
- Tom Fox looks at corporate compliance through the lens of characters from the Hundred Acre Wood. He shouts out to Texas Governor Gregg Abbot as winner of the Covidiot Award, Texas division.
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
In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
- Zimbabwe anti-corruption commission begin investigation of private wealth. (BBC)
- South African police make arrests in massive bank fraud. (TheGuardian)
- In spite of Trump, Ukraine making strides in anti-corruption. (National Law Journal)
- IMF urged to hold off on $5bn+ loan to Egypt over corruption. (Middle East Eye)
