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This Week in FCPA

Episode 265 – the Personal Responsibility edition


As Texas’ Governor-Mr. Personal Responsibility-himself comes down with Covid after refusing to engage in ‘personal responsibility’, Tom and Jay are back to look at some of this week’s top compliance and ethics stories which caught their interest on This Week in FCPA in the Personal Responsibility edition. 
Stories

  1. Corruption led to the fall of Afghanistan. Dick Cassin in the FCPA Blog.
  2. Does HSBC facilitate cybercrime. Elfriede Sixt in Risk and Compliance Journal Europe.
  3. The Pearson SEC enforcement action. Matt Kelly in Radical Compliance. Tom and Matt on Compliance into the Weeds. Kevin Lacroix in the D&O Diary.
  4. Trust and the CCO? Jeff Kaplan in Conflict of Interest
  5. Fraud during the pandemic. James Ruotolo in CCI.
  6. Inefficiency in AML enforcement. Maria Evstropova in CCI.
  7. SEC coming after cryptocurrencies. Aaron Nicodemus in Compliance Week.
  8. What Boards need to know before, during and after M&A. Maria Castanon Moats and Leah Malone in Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
  9. Who is on your crisis management team? Eden Gillott in com.
  10. CFIUS publishes 2020 report. K2 Integrity Client Alert.

 Podcasts and Events

  1. On Innovation in Compliance this week I interview Dennis Kucinich about his latest book, The Division of Light and Power. Check out the show here.
  2. On The Compliance Life, in August I visit with Kortney Nordrum CCO at Deluxe. In Episode 1, from Red Wing to Israel. In Episode 2, From Freddie Mac to the law.
  3. How do the Greek Eumenes and the Roman Sertorius inform compliance leadership today? Find out as Tom and Richard Lummis continue their exploration of Plutarch’s Lives in this episode of 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership.
  4. Compliance Week is having an open house this month as they have dropped their firewall. You can check out the entire publication for no charge. Check it out here.
  5. Breaking News features The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition. Check out the Breaking News feature here. Purchase The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition here. Find out more about The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition in an upcoming Zoom webinar, on Wednesday, September 1 at 8:30 AM ET; hosted by the Azevedo Sette law firm and Charles River Associates. To RSVP email tcintra@azevedosette.br

Tom Fox is the Voice of Compliance and can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Jay Rosen is Mr. Monitor and can be reached at jrosen@affiliatedmonitors.com.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

August 20, 2021 the No Responsibility edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Bitcoin mixer pleads guilty to AML violations. (WSJ)
  • Richard Sackler says family bears no responsibility for Opioid Crisis. (NYT)
  • Navalny calls for greater fight against global corruption. (The Guardian)
  • Largest FCA Taft-Hartley case ever. (Detroit Free Press)
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Blog

Day 19 of 30 Days to a Better Compliance Program, Compliance Expertise on the Board

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has called for greater compliance expertise at the Board level. The OIG said that a Board could raise its level of substantive expertise concerning regulatory and compliance matters by adding a compliance member to the Board. Such a compliance professional with subject matter expertise on the Board sends a strong message about the organization’s commitment to compliance, provides a valuable resource to other Board members, and helps the Board better fulfill its oversight obligations. Mike Volkov looked at it from both a practical and business perspective. He stated, “I have witnessed firsthand that companies with a board member with compliance expertise usually have a more aggressive and effective compliance program. In this situation, a Chief Compliance Officer has to answer to the board for the company’s compliance program while receiving the resources and support to accomplish compliance tasks.” Roy Snell sees it through the prism of the compliance profession and has said, “If you ask most companies if they have compliance expertise on their Board… most would say yes. When asked who the compliance expert is, they typically point to a lawyer, auditor, risk manager, or ethicist. None of these professions are automatically compliance experts. All lawyers have different specialties.” He goes on to state that what regulators want to see is specific compliance expertise at the Board level. He noted, “the government is looking for is not generic compliance expertise. They are looking for compliance program management expertise. Hui Chen, the DOJ Compliance Counsel, has continually talked about the need for companies to operationalize their compliance programs. She intones businesses must work to burn compliance into the fabric and DNA of their organization. Having a Board member with specific compliance expertise heading a Board level Compliance Committee can provide a level of oversight and commitment to achieving this goal. It will not be long before the DOJ and SEC require this step in any FCPA enforcement action resolution. This means that when your company is evaluated by Chen, under the factors set out in Prong Three of the FCPA Pilot Program, to retrospectively determine if your company had a best practices compliance program in place at the time of any violation, you need to have not only the structure of the Board level Compliance Committee but also the specific subject matter expertise on the Board and on that committee.

Key Takeaways

  1. Boards must have compliance expertise.
  2. Government regulators and shareholder groups have called for greater compliance expertise on the Board.
  3. Compliance expertise at the Board works up and down as such expertise can be a resource to the CCO and the compliance department.

For more information, check out my book Doing Compliance: Design, Create and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program, which is available by clicking here. Both government regulators and shareholder groups have both called for greater compliance expertise at the Board.

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Compliance Kitchen

UK Enforcement of Crimea Sanctions


The Kitchen reviews a recent enforcement action from the UK, penalizing a company for money transfers that were deemed prohibited under EU’s Crimea sanctions regulations.

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Everything Compliance

Episode 84, the Eyeball Rental Edition


Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. Today, we have a quartet of Jonathan Armstrong, Jay Rosen, Jonathan Marks and special guest panelist Mary Shirley for a deep dive into a potpourri of issues and topics. We end with a veritable mélange of rants and shouts outs.

  1. Jay Rosen looks at the anticipated anti-trust policy issues and enforcement coming out of the Biden Administration. Rosen shouts out to those attorneys at the Department of Justice and State AGs’ offices who stood up when Trump tried to steal the election.

 

  1. Mary Shirley sits in as a special guest panelist. Mary discusses the recent actions of the CCO at Activision/Blizzard. Shirley rants about the lessening of the CCO role.

 

  1. Jonathan Marks considers the role of internal audit in internal investigations. Marks rants about MLB having a Field of Dreams baseball game and then blacking it out to almost ½ of the country.

 

  1. Jonathan Armstrong discusses the Amazon GDPR fine issues by the Luxemburg Data Protection Authority. In a melancholy shout out, Armstrong honors 1st responders to the Plymouth shooting in the UK.

 

  1. Tom Fox shouts out Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and his inaction on the Texas Power Grid crisis, which increased his campaign contributions from the energy industry.

 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, ranter (and sometime panelist) of Everything Compliance is Tom Fox the Voice of Compliance. He can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Everything Compliance is a part of the Compliance Podcast Network.

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12 O’Clock High-a podcast on business leadership

Plutarch’s Lives- Eumenes and Sertorius


12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership brings together stories from history, the arts and movies, research and current events to consider leadership lessons. In this episode, Richard Lummis and Tom Fox are on a 10-part summer series on leadership lessons from biographies found in Plutarch’s Lives. Each week we will pair an ancient Greek and Roman to learn about their lives, the comparison and contrast between the two men and what leadership lessons with might draw from their lives. In today’s episode we look at the Greek Eumenes and the Roman Sertorius. Highlights include:
·       Introduction of Plutarch’s Lives as historical work.
·       Lives of Eumenes and Sertorius.
·       Comparison in the lives of Eumenes and Sertorius.
·       Are they really tragic figures?
·       The role of prominent citizens outside the capital cities of Athens and Rome.
·      What leadership lessons can be drawn from the lives Eumenes and Sertorius.
Resources
Plutarch’s Lives by Bill Thayer

Categories
Daily Compliance News

August 19, 2021 the Productivity Boom edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
·       Oral arguments in Hoskins dismissal appeal by DOJ. (WSJ)
·       Taliban on Facebook.  (NYT)
·       Meet Freddie Mac’s new CCO. (WSJ)
·       US on verge of productivity boom. What does it mean for compliance? (WaPo)

Categories
Compliance Kitchen

SEC Whistleblower Award


In this episode, we look at the SEC’s awards to whistleblowers of over $4M and a recent update from the US Customs as they issue a Withhold Release Order on foreign origin products due to forced labor harvesting practices.

Categories
Great Women in Compliance

Jared Knapp – Respect and Dignity in the Compliance Hiring Process

Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.

Today’s guest is another Compliance professional that Mary met through volunteering with Compliance Career Connection (CCC).  CCC was formed in the fall of 2020 as a support system for peers in the difficult position of seeking new employment during the pandemic.  It is a group that runs at least monthly events encompassing an activity to help exercise skills required in the job search process.  Jared Knapp is also on the CCC leadership team and a trade governance expert.  He joins Mary in this bonus episode to discuss respect and dignity in the Compliance hiring process.  As Ethics and Compliance professionals, isn’t the onus on us to act ethically when building out our teams?  Jared and Mary think so and outline some of the common grievances job seekers are facing.

The discussion focuses on broken aspects of the hiring process and what Jared envisages can be done to make the experience an overall better one for candidates, as well as one that Ethics and Compliance professionals can be proud to be associated with.  He also shares some trade sanctions wisdom to close out the day’s discussion.

 The Great Women in Compliance Podcast is on the Compliance Podcast Network with a selection of other Compliance related offerings to listen in to.  If you are enjoying this episode, please rate it on your preferred podcast player to help other likeminded Ethics and Compliance professionals find it.  You can also find the GWIC podcast on Corporate Compliance Insights where Lisa and Mary have a landing page with additional information about them and the story of the podcast.  Corporate Compliance Insights is a much appreciated sponsor and supporter of GWIC, including affiliate organization CCI Press publishing the related book; “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020).

As always, we are so grateful for all of your support and if you have any feedback or suggestions for our 2021 line up or would just like to reach out and say hello, we always welcome hearing from our listeners.

We welcome any feedback you may wish to send in to gwicpod@gmail.com.

You can subscribe to the Great Women in Compliance podcast on any podcast player by searching for it and we welcome new subscribers to our podcast.

Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.

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Compliance Into the Weeds

Pearson SEC 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. This week Matt and Tom take a deep dive into the SEC enforcement involving Pearson. Some of the issues we consider are:

  • How can a failure to disclose lead to a SEC violation?
  • What were the disclosure controls and procedures failures?
  • How is patch management a critical part of cybersecurity?
  • What were the misleading statements made by Pearson?
  • What are the lessons learned?
  • What is the role of compliance? 

Resources
Matt in Radical Compliance
SEC Schools Pearson on Cyber Disclosure Failures