In this introductory episode, Compliance Kitchen host Silvia Surnam welcomes you to “See What’s Cooking” in the Compliance Kitchen. The Compliance Kitchen was launched after many moons of texts, calls, chats and coffee outings that went something like this:

• Hey, can my friend call you to see what you think about the Russia and Iran sanctions?  
• Where would you find support for that export license requirement? Can I call you?
• Do you have a minute? This compliance lawyer told me that an Executive Order is a suggestion of what a law could be, not an actual law. Is that true?  
• So if we are not a US company, we can trade with Cuba, right?
• What are secondary sanctions? 
• Say, any chance you would know if facilitation payment was more specifically set (dollar amount, for example) in Mexican anti-corruption law?  
• What’s a UBO?  
• This GDPR thing, that’s just for Europe, right? And we are Safe Harbor certified, so it doesn’t even apply to us – can we chat?
• At a coffee shop one morning: So, what’s cooking in compliance today?  

And so the Compliance Kitchen was born.  It is here for those who want to “see what’s cooking” in the never-boring worlds of corporate compliance, white collar crime and global trade. We hope that our selection of topics will be of interest and that official resources will be easier to locate. We also hope that you will feel comfortable in the Compliance Kitchen and read on, finding it enjoyable.