Categories
¡(H)Ola Compliance!

¡(H)Ola Compliance! Episodio 2: Programas de Cumplimiento en LatAm: Avances y Desafíos

En este episodio de ¡(H)Ola Compliance!, Matt y Alejandra continúan su análisis de la Encuesta Sobre Corrupción en América Latina 2020 enfocándose en los avances y desafíos en la implementación de programas de cumplimiento. Desde políticas y procedimientos, capacitaciones, monitoreo de terceros, y líneas de alertas e investigaciones los programas de cumplimiento en la región están evolucionando. Pero no sin sus retos. ¿Cómo se compara tu programa de cumplimiento? ¡Únete a nuestra discusión para medirlo!

Preguntas? Contáctenos en podcasts@milchev.com.
¡(H)Ola Compliance! no tiene la intención y no se puede considerar como asesoramiento legal; el contenido solo refleja los pensamientos y opiniones de sus anfitriones.
¡(H)Ola Compliance! explora la ola de cumplimiento de anticorrupción que ha surgido por Latinoamérica. Inmerso en su cariño para la región, Matteson Ellis y Alejandra Montenegro Almonte (Socios de Miller & Chevalier), navegan las aguas de regulaciones de cumplimiento corporativo desde sus oficinas en Washington, DC y trazan las normas de anticorrupción que afectan a la región.  A la vez destacan los desafíos y oportunidades que enfrentan las empresas comprometidas a la ética. ¿Te sientes que estás nadando contra la corriente? ¡Entonces tome la ola de cumplimiento en ¡(H)Ola Compliance!

Categories
FCPA Compliance Report Wirecard

Wirecard-Part 6, End of Summer Wrap UP


In the Episode, I am joined by Mikhail Reider-Gordon, Managing Director of Institutional Ethics & Integrity at Affiliated Monitors.  Mikhail’s areas of expertise include technology, privacy, cybersecurity, IP and accountability in artificial intelligence; the global anti-corruption and anti-money laundering regimes; media & entertainment; biotech and the life sciences; the public sector and international law.  She is accustomed to working on extremely sensitive and high-profile matters, both nationally and internationally. In this episode, we are back from a summer hiatus and wrap up what has been happening on the Wirecard front over the past few weeks.
Some of the highlights include:

  • BaFin Unapologetic
  • Reporters and Short Sellers – Free to Be, You & Me?
  • Political Fallout?
  • Another German DAX-listed Company Scandal?
  • Impact on EU – Rethinking Germany Frankfurt and Bonn for Financial Services Capitols post-Brexit?
  • What is happening within Wirecard now – is the company still going?
  • Deutsche is Not Buying
  • Has the fullness of the scandal been revealed, or is more coming to light?
  • What is, or what was, Project Panther?
  • Enron had significant impact on then Big-5; is Wirecard going to impact Big-4 in the same way?
Categories
The Compliance Life

DeAnna Nwankwo – The Importance of Building Trust


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 DeAnna Nwankwo who served as Corporate Compliance Officer for Core Laboratories from 2003 May 2020. In that capacity, she led Core Laboratories ethics and compliance activities.
As CCO, DeAnna reported to the general counsel and secretary and to the audit committee of the board of directors. She was responsible for formulating and implementing Core Lab’s ethics policies and procedures, including its Code of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility and making sure they were communicated and trained upon across the company. DeAnna managed the company’s employee Helpline resources and served as a final internal resource which concerned parties could communicate after other formal channels and resources were exhausted. As Corporate Compliance Officer, she was authorized to implement all necessary actions to ensure achievement of the objectives of an effective compliance program. In her role, she collaborated with other functional departments (Internal Audit, Human Resources, Information Security, etc.) to receive and direct compliance issues to appropriate resources for investigation and resolution.
In this third episode, we consider the importance of a CCO building trust, being honest and having high ethical standards. DeAnna discusses how managing the helpline is not only so critical but also an important resource of information for every CCO. She discusses the importance of reporting facts, and not your opinion in fraud and ethics investigations. She also notes that in every investigation, there are teachable moments. Finally, although DeAnna has a QA professional background, she cautions to never forget the human factors in every investigation.

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Compliance and Coronavirus

Ariel Weindling and Andy Hinton on the Increased Importance of Reporting


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 Ariel Weindling, founder of #NotMe Solutions and Andy Hinton, Strategic Advisor to the firm. We discuss the increased need for employee reporting during the Coronavirus health crisis.
Some of the topics include:

  • Why is reporting so much more critical now, in the time of Coronavirus?
  • What are the top questions you are getting from employers?
  • Where do you see reporting, employment law and Covid-19 issues going over the next year?

For more information on #NotMe Solutions, click here.

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Great Women in Compliance

Alejandra Montenegro Almonte


Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
Today’s guest is Alejandra Montenegro Almonte, a member of the law firm Miller Chevalier, who has built a practice where she has an international practice focusing on design and implementation of risk-based internal compliance programs and is also a monitor on behalf of a regulatory agency in Massachusetts.
Alejandra has returned to private practice after spending time at gategroup as the General Counsel for North American and LATAM. She talks about her experience of going from law firm to in-house, and she has had a unique experience in that she went back to a law firm.
Alejandra was born in Nicaragua and moved to New Orleans at age 4. She talks about how coming to the US at such a young age has influenced her career decision, her view on practicing law and the importance of hearing from diverse voices in all aspects of advising risk and compliance risks. She has had experience being the only woman in the room in LATAM, and all over the world and has insight into that as well.
We are so excited to have Alejandra as a guest during Latino Heritage Month.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.

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Compliance Into the Weeds

Compliance into the Weeds: When is Diversity Training Anti-American Propaganda/the FinCen Files?


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 at the recent initiative of the Department of Education to go after Princeton University for diversity training which Trump says is “Anti-American propaganda” and the release of the FinCen papers. Some of the issues we consider are:

  • What is the Trump Administration up to?
  • Will white nationalism be the order of the day if Trump wins?
  • Why does impact compliance professionals?
  • What are the FinCen papers?
  • Why was their release so devastating to the Administration?

Resources
See Matt’s blog posts on Radical Compliance
Boom: The FinCen Files are Here
Trump Administration Targets Princeton for Diversity

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Daily Compliance News

September 23, 2020-the Is It a Deal or Not edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • Data analytics comes to compliance. (WSJ)
  • Papa Masata Diack-come get me. (BBC)
  • Trump Admin to gig workers-screw you. (WaPo)
  • Is it a deal or not (TikTok)? (NYT)
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The Ethics Movement

Converge20-Salima Fajal- Accountability Beyond Diversity & Inclusion


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 Salima Fajal. We visit about her presentation at Converge20 on Accountability Beyond Diversity & Inclusion. 
It’s no longer enough to let your company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team—or more likely, the one DEI person you might have on staff—struggle to move the needle on equality. In 2020 and beyond, we ALL have a role to play in the movement for racial justice, perhaps no team more so than Ethics and Compliance. After all, failing to live up to your company values on behalf of all employees represents a significant risk. Join this session for an open, vulnerable conversation on how that accountability translates into your daily work, from leading the fight against bias to influencing company culture, monitoring social media activity, and more.
For more registration and information on Converge20, click here.

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The Affiliated Monitors Expert Podcast

What Does the Government Expect?


In this podcast, I am joined by AMI Managing Director Rod Grandon. We engage in an in-depth discussion what the government expects from contractors. The heart of the business ethics and compliance program distils to three basic elements: PREVENT misconduct from occurring. DETECT misconduct when it occurs. CORRECT by taking appropriate steps to remediate the consequences of the discovered misconduct (internally, with customers, and with other stakeholders), to understand the root cause of the misconduct, and, based on the findings of the root cause analysis, to revise policies, practices, and controls to prevent similar acts in the future. Many of these same considerations are addressed in the United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (Guidelines) (as amended November 1, 2016), offering additional guidance for contractors to consider in developing and maintaining effective ethics and compliance programs. The Guidelines make clear that courts will assess effectiveness, at least for the purposes of federal sentencing, by determining whether an organization’s ethics and compliance program has been “reasonably designed, implemented, and enforced so that the program is generally effective in preventing and detecting criminal conduct.” To do so, the program must achieve two fundamental outcomes: (1) it must require the contractor to exercise due diligence to prevent and detect criminal conduct, and (2) otherwise promote an organizational culture that encourages ethical conduct and a commitment to compliance with the law.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Internal Controls – COSO Objective II: Risk Assessments

Objective II is designed to provide a company with a “dynamic and iterative process for identifying and assessing risks.” For the compliance practitioner, none of this will sound new or even insightful, however the Framework requires a component of management input and oversight that was perhaps not as well understood.
The objective of Risk Assessment consists of four principles.
Principle 6: Suitable objectives.
Principle 7: Identifies and analyzes risk.
Principle 8: Fraud risk.
Principle 9: Identifies and analyzes significant change.

The SEC has made it clear that companies should be expanding their view of risk in implementing the COSO 2013 Internal Controls Framework. Obviously, risk assessments are a cornerstone of a best practices compliance program as laid out in the 2012 FCPA Guidance and in the DOJ’s Evaluation. The regulators are telling companies specifically that they should be seeing new risks that they need address because of the changes brought about by the new standard.
Three key takeaways:

  1. Risk assessments are required under the COSO 2013 Internal Controls Framework, the 2012 FCPA Guidance and almost all other best practices compliance programs.
  2. Look at your risks across your organization and not in a siloed manner.
  3. Risks, both determination and management of, changes over time so be cognizant of changes in business practices on the ground.

For more information on how to build out a best practices compliance program, including internal controls, check out The Compliance Handbook, 3rd edition.