In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
- Trump removes watchdog over CAREs bailout. (NYT)
- Farewell to the hot desk? (NYT)
- Boeing to close SC plant. (WaPo)
- John Prine dies. (RollingStone)
Author: admin
Welcome to the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. 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 am joined by Eric Feldman, SVP at Affiliated Monitors, Inc. We discuss why doing a culture assessment now during the Coronavirus health crisis will provide you a much more robust picture of your corporate culture and how you can do so in a cost effective, efficient manner.
For more information on Affiliated Monitors, Inc. check out their website here.
This podcast is sponsored by SAI Global. To learn how you can protect your business operations and workforce during these uncertain times, visit saiglobal.com/risk for free resources, expert guidance, and industry-leading technology.
Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
COVID-19 has had a monumental impact all over the world. Every day, we see new public health issues, are living through economic challenges and everyone’s daily lives are very different than a year ago, or even 3 months ago. In this special joint episode, Mary and Lisa share various perspectives of the new normal in their day-to-day lives regarding how the Coronavirus has affected both work and home during this era.
The discussion runs the gamut from serious to lighthearted topics including contrasting life in lockdown in New Zealand for Mary with Lisa’s observations from the United States. You’ll hear a bit about their experiences at work, in the compliance communities and some tips for vendors to facilitate value add outreach to Compliance professions at this sensitive time.
Of course, they also share what is on their reading and viewing lists, the exchange of uplifting moments, silver linings and what they are doing to support their colleagues, families and communities.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.
Categories
Covidiocy
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. While we have both written and spoken about companies who are responding positively during the COVID-19 crisis, today we take up companies who are not doing so and are thereby engaging in covidiocy.
Some of the highlights include:
- What is the tale of the Boston Sports Club?
- What were its governance failures? Its policy failures?
- What is the FINRA Guidance on Pandemic Risks?
- Why is liquidity so critical now?
- Corporate governance failures by the parent.
Resources
Matt Kelly blog posts , When Covidiocy Strikes Corporate Governance and New FINRA on Pandemic Risks
Tom Fox blog post, Navigating the Coronavirus Crisis for Compliance Professionals -Company Responses
In this five-part series, Mike Volkov and Tom Fox consider COVID-19 from a variety of angles and perspectives; from the Board of Directors, the CCO, the ethical company, new laws and regulations, crisis management and leadership. In this second episode, we consider the role of the Board of Directors and crisis management. Highlights from the podcast include:
- Companies have three significant initial hurdles in the COVID-19 context: (a) Can the business continue to operate while protecting health and safety of employees and stakeholders? (b) If so, how can business continue and operate efficiently? (c) What will be impact on business from discontinuation of related industries?
- Are you assessing your risks in an ongoing and (almost) daily updating manner?
- What are your scenario-based financial analyses relating to capital, liquidity, financial health and survival?
- What is your succession planning?
- Security, data protection and privacy protocols.
Resources
Mike Volkov
Board Governance Challenges in COVID-19 Crisis
COVID-19: Crisis Management
Tom Fox
Peter Eyre on Navigating the Waters
Mike Cherkasky on Testing Your Mettle
Third-parties still present the highest risk around compliance. Indeed, in the area of third-parties the 2019 Guidance, posed the following question in a section entitled, Management of Relationships – How has the company considered and analyzed the compensation and incentive structures for third parties against compliance risks? How does the company monitor its third parties? Does the company have audit rights to analyze the books and accounts of third parties, and has the company exercised those rights in the past?
It is therefore critical that you use monitoring and auditing when it comes to continuous improvement for this high-risk area. Next, we consider three aspects of a company’s audit program for its compliance function: the types and purpose of third-party audits, planning for third-party audits and interviewing third-parties.
Three key takeaways:
- Start planning your third-party audit 4-6 weeks in advance of the actual audit.
- Use your business sponsor to help facilitate the process with the third-party.
- This is not a “gotcha” interview but an open Q&A process where you have a golden opportunity to educate as you ask questions.
Tom Fox chats with the Chief Compliance Officer at Aventiv Technologies, Russ Berland, in the premiere episode of The Compliance Life. They discuss the lessons Russ learned as a compliance officer and how it relates to pizza.
Pizza Is The Key To Success
Tom asks why Russ believes that pizza is the key to success as a compliance officer. Russ responds that compliance often functions in a silo; however, to be effective, a compliance officer must be engaged with everyone who has influence within the company. “I found the secret weapon in that arsenal to build those relationships,” Russ says, “was to buy lots and lots of pizza, and I would bring together these groups of all these people, have strategy sessions. It was funny that when the pizza came out, people started talking, sharing about what was really going on in the organization, who they were as people, what they were looking for and it broke down a lot of the barriers.” He learned this strategy at Hewlett Packard. Connecting with people is the key to success, he emphasizes
His Compliance Life
Russ details his journey from associate general counsel at Compaq to compliance officer. As a consequence of the merger with Hewlett Packard, a large part of the legal department at Compaq was being phased out. He was offered the opportunity to join the newly formed compliance department, which he accepted. He had real life experience using the skills they needed, so he was a natural fit. He describes how he helped streamline their internal investigation process to a multi-disciplinary one with governance. Throughout his career, Russ says, he has worked in compliance and investigations on all six inhabited continents
Resources
Aventiv Technologies
Russ Berland on LinkedIn
Welcome to the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. 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 am joined by Peter Eyre, a partner at Crowell & Moring. We discuss how the Coronavirus health crisis will impact employee relations, the interplay of federal, state, county and city orders during this time and how you can navigate these often choppy waters.
The firm also has one of the best resources on navigating the coronavirus health crisis, the Coronavirus Resource Center. It is updated multiple times daily. You can check it out here.
This podcast is sponsored by SAI Global. To learn how you can protect your business operations and workforce during these uncertain times, visit saiglobal.com/risk for free resources, expert guidance, and industry-leading technology.
In this week’s Innovation In Compliance show, Tom Fox, together with guests Sean Freidlin, Yan Tougas and Patrick Henz, have a roundtable discussion about their experience with taking Seattle University’s free course, AI Ethics For Business. They chat about what they felt were the highlights of the course, as well as the opportunities for improvement.
Patrick Henz
Patrick likes how trainers from different disciplines work together as a team to present the course. He suggests that this interdisciplinary approach could be used by companies for compliance training, since compliance is becoming more of an integrated function, mainly due to budgetary constraints. Patrick emphasizes the importance of continuous learning: the world is changing so quickly that we cannot rely solely on our university training to keep abreast.
The topic of robotic process automation was missing from the course, Patrick thinks. He believes that psychology and ethics, topics discussed in the first module, are relevant for all compliance practitioners. He comments, “We’re not only here to identify the bad employees but furthermore to protect the good employees, which includes protecting them against themselves…”
Yan Tougas
Organizations using and/or creating AI must create their own set of governing values and principles from the outset, Yan points out. Two of those values should be transparency and agency. “If we are going to use AI to make some critical decisions about people’s welfare,” Yan says, “…we need to create room in the process for a human to make a final decision.” He points out that the pressure to rush to market is one reason companies do not create their own values and principles around AI. “We need to be extra careful and make sure that we don’t let this pressure to get to market and this pressure to adopt AI blind us from the homework we need to do up front,” he comments.
Yan appreciates the Operational Readiness document in Module Three, which he describes as a practical tool compliance practitioners can use. On the other hand, he thinks that the user interface and the quizzes at the end of each module could be improved.
Sean Friedlin
Sean finds it refreshing that a large corporation such as Microsoft has partnered with Seattle University to create free training for the public good. He hopes that more companies would embrace these types of partnerships in the spirit of corporate social responsibility. Sean sees this as the emergence of a deeper commitment to ethics as AI develops. He notes with interest that the Vatican has joined in this conversation.
Sean poses two interesting questions:
- What impact will COVID-19 have on AI advancement?
- What makes a good online learning experience?
Having the subject matter experts as narrators and anchors throughout the course establishes their credibility; Sean views this as a pattern other course creators should follow. He finds the course content too text-heavy, however, and the UI design mobile unfriendly.
Tom Fox
The exercise emphasized for Tom the need for companies to start with ethical values and accountability for the entire organization. You cannot simply ask those involved with these cutting-edge questions to be the sole corporate repository of ethical and moral values, he argues. Put these values in place now, enshrine them throughout your organization so when the
business opportunity or a crisis arrives, you would already have the framework in place to make a decision aligned with your company values.
The course is a good reminder to consider governance and structure as part of your compliance regime, Tom comments. It was a positive experience overall; however, it may not work for ongoing communications or training due to time.
Resources
Seattle University course- AI Ethics for Business
Rome Call for AI Ethics
Rome Call
Vatican joins IBM, Microsoft to call for facial recognition regulation