Following President Biden’s inauguration, Brian and Tim look back at the chaotic final two weeks of the Trump administration to examine the flurry of trade and foreign policy actions taken on the way out the door. In Lightning Round fashion, we cover: Cuba’s re-designation as a State Sponsor of Terror, statements about China committing genocide, more actions targeting the crackdown in Hong Kong, a few final pokes in the eye to Iran, the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny and a possible new era for sanctions targeting Russia, designations impacting the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, an amended (but still ambiguous) E.O. relating to publicly traded securities of CCMCs, provocative moves relating to Taiwan and the South China Sea, and a brand new regulatory regime meant to protect the ICTS supply chain from foreign adversaries.
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EMBARGOED! is not intended and cannot be relied on as legal advice; the content only reflects the thoughts and opinions of its hosts.
Timestamps:
0:10 Introduction and Roadmap
5:57 Lightning Round-Style Recap
8:47 Cuba Designated a State Sponsor of Terror
14:43 Pronouncement that China is Committing Genocide
21:03 Latest from Hong Kong
26:20 Final Pokes in the Eye to Iran
32:38 Russia after Navalny’s Arrest
39:58 Designating Houthis as an FTO/SDGT?
46:53 Amended CCMC EO
56:25 Taiwan and the South China Sea
1:03:30 Interim Final ICTS Rule
1:10:28 Final Thoughts
***Stay sanctions free.***
One of the areas articulated in the 2020 Update was around payments and payroll. For the both the compliance professional and the corporate payroll function, there is a significant role to play in the operationalization of a corporate compliance program. The 2020 Update was replete with references to payment and its critical nature to any best practices compliance program. This includes references to payments to foreign officials, payments to third parties and hiding bribes in payments to distributors. The 2020 Update begins with an admonition to stop wasting time on low hanging fruit when there are much higher risks in your business operations.
The role of payroll in compliance is not often considered in operationalizing your compliance program, yet the monies to fund bribes must come from somewhere. Unfortunately, one of those places is out of payroll. All CCOs need to sit down with his or her head of payroll, have them explain the role of payroll, then review the internal controls in place to see how they facilitate the goals of compliance. From that review, you can then determine how to use payroll to help to operationalize your compliance program.
The DOJ has now provided its clearest statement on how it expects a company to actually do compliance going forward. Long gone are the days where the DOJ simply considered the inputs of a written program as sufficient to protect companies from compliance violations. Yet the mandate to operationalize a corporate compliance program drives home the concept that compliance is a business process, which should be administered by the appropriate business unit with the requisite SME. When it comes to following the money, payroll is the most well-suited corporate discipline to provide this first level of oversight and controls.
Three key takeaways:
- Payroll can be a key prevent and detect control.
- The 2020 Update specified the tying of the corporate compliance function to the corporate payroll function.
- Offshore payments remain a key indicator for a red flag.
Welcome to this special podcast series, Integrity Matters: Assessing the Corporate Compliance Climate in 2021, sponsored by K2 Integrity. This week I visit with Bob Brenner, Co-Managing Partner and Chief Legal Officer; Snežana Gebauer, Executive Managing Director and head of U.S. Investigations and Risk Advisory, Americas. Over the week, we will consider various regulatory and enforcement issues with the incoming Biden Administration. Topics include assessing the regulatory landscape resulting from the pandemic, what companies can expect from new administration priorities, anti-bribery/anti-corruption issues and enforcement in 2021. In this Part 3, I am joined by Snežana Gebauer who discusses what companies can expect as priorities from new administration around anti-bribery and anti-corruption.
Join us tomorrow as we examine global trends impacting risk and compliance in 2021.
For more information go to the K2 Integrity website.
Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
While there are a lot of women in the field of Ethics and Compliance, there are fewer women who are in forensic risk analysis. Today, Lisa speaks with one of the pioneers in this area, Frances McLeod. Frances is an owner and Founding Partner of Forensic Risk Alliance (FRA) and head of its US offices. She has worked in many areas – data privacy and GDPR, as a monitor in many different matters for the SEC and DOJ and has focused a lot on sanctions as of late.
Frances shares her experiences in growing FRA and her commitment to diversity in the field, as well as supporting and empowering women in their careers. She also talks about her experiences in very different monitorships – from being “the data lady” in the City of Ferguson matter, to her recent involvement in the IAV monitorships.
We also discuss what compliance officers should be thinking about as Artificial Intelligence grows in importance for all of us.
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 which is hosted on the Compliance Podcast Network.
Lisa and Mary have extended the Great Women in Compliance brand to the booking “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020) which can be found on Amazon and features valuable wisdom and advice from Great Women in Compliance across the world.
If you’ve already read the booked and liked it, will you help out other women to make the decision to leverage off the tips and advice given by rating the book and giving it a glowing review on Amazon?
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.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.
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. Today we consider what will be the implications of our working environments post-pandemic. Will we be permanently working from home, returning to the office, a mix of both or something else?
Some of the issues we consider are:
- What are the compliance implications of a distributed workforce?
- How to maintain culture?
- Is WFH communications too much like social media?
- What about cyber-bullying from co-workers?
Resources
Matt’s blog post in Radical Compliance: Thoughts on Return to Work
The Compliance Life details the journey to and in the role of a Chief Compliance Officer. How does one come to sit in the CCO chair? What are some of the skills a CCO needs to success navigate the compliance waters in any company? What are some of the top challenges CCOs have faced and how did they meet them? These questions and many others will be explored in this new podcast series. Over four episodes each month on The Compliance Life, I visit with one current or former CCO to explore their journey to the CCO chair. This month, my guest is Gwen Hassan, Managing Counsel and Director of Compliance at CNH Industrial.
In this fourth and final episode, Gwen talks about one of her great passions—the fight against human trafficking. Gwen has led the compliance field in education on this international scourge and sees the corporate compliance function as having the key role in every corporation to fight this global problem.
The role of the compliance professional and the compliance function in a corporation has steadily grown in stature and prestige over the years. When it came to the corporate compliance function, 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, under the Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, simply noted the government would “consider whether the company devoted adequate staffing and resources to the compliance program given the size, structure, and risk profile of the business.”
This Hallmark was significantly expanded in both the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy and 2020 Update. In the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, the DOJ listed the following as factors relating to a corporate compliance function, that it would consider as indicia of an effective compliance and ethics program: 1) the resources the company has dedicated to compliance; 2) the quality and experience of the personnel involved in compliance, such that they can understand and identify the transactions and activities that pose a potential risk; 3) the authority and independence of the compliance function and the availability of compliance expertise to the board; 4) the compensation and promotion of the personnel involved in compliance, in view of their role, responsibilities, performance, and other appropriate factors; and 5) the reporting structure of any compliance personnel employed or contracted by the company.
The 2020 Update and FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy both demonstrate the continued evolution in the thinking of the DOJ around the corporate compliance function. Their articulated inquiries can only strengthen a corporate compliance function specifically; and the compliance profession more generally. The more the DOJ talks about the independence of the compliance function, coupled with resources being made available and authority concomitant with the corporate compliance function, the more corporations will see it is directly in their interest to provide the resources, authority and gravitas to compliance position in their organizations.
Three key takeaways:
- How is compliance treated in the budget process?
- Has your compliance function had any decisions over-ridden by senior management?
- Beware outsourcing of compliance as any such contractor must have access to company documents and personnel.
Welcome to this special podcast series, Integrity Matters: Assessing the Corporate Compliance Climate in 2021, sponsored by K2 Integrity. This week I visit with Bob Brenner, Co-Managing Partner and Chief Legal Officer; Snežana Gebauer, Executive Managing Director and head of U.S. Investigations and Risk Advisory, Americas. Over the week, we will consider various regulatory and enforcement issues with the incoming Biden Administration. Topics include assessing the regulatory landscape resulting from the pandemic, what companies can expect from new administration priorities, anti-bribery/anti-corruption issues and enforcement in 2021. In this Part 2, I am joined by Bob Brenner who discusses what companies can expect as priorities from new administration.
Join us tomorrow as we examine anti-bribery and anti-corruption priorities from the incoming Biden Administration.
For more information go to the K2 Integrity website.
Gary Chan is the President of Pragmatic Security at Alfizo and specializes in data protection and security. Tom Fox welcomes him onto this week’s show as they discuss the ways to help businesses leverage IT departments, enable sales, and meet compliance.
Why Information Security
When people buy information security, Gary explains, they’re not looking for someone to go in and solve every problem. Clients want to look at information security from a business perspective: how will it help them generate revenue and protect only the things the business wants to protect while saving money? Gary calls this ‘pragmatic information security’ because it delves into the why. It is an approach that helps businesses understand what the highest risks are, and how to manage those risks.
Security Within Executive Branches
Gary finds that even the most sophisticated Board of Directors lack a proper understanding of data protection. They are more concerned with meeting compliance and avoiding fines. “They don’t really understand what security can do for them outside of keeping them from getting hacked,” he says. Tom comments that boards consider their reputation surrounding compliance more. Gary suggests tying data protection to the issues boards are more concerned about to get them to do something about it.
The Impact of COVID-19 on Security
From a business perspective, Covid-19 had a large impact. Security arms of firms were shut down as security isn’t seen as something that brings in revenue, Gary remarks. He adds that people’s behavior changed and that having the majority of your employees working from home increases your business risk. COVID-19 has been a golden age for hackers because stealing is easier, and they’re less likely to get caught. However, when businesses started reopening and companies realized that turning off security tools was dangerous, they have ramped up security. This time loss increased companies’ security expenses and boosted the demand for security and data protection from more people.
Resources
Alfizo
Start-Training.Alfizo.com
Gary Chan | LinkedIn