Tag: 2023 ECCP

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs Uncategorized

31 Days to a More Effective Compliance Program – Day 22 – Levels of Due Diligence

Due diligence is generally recognized in three levels: Level I, Level II, and Level III. Each level is appropriate for a different level of corruption risk. The key is to develop a mechanism to determine the appropriate level of due diligence and then implement that going forward.

The 2023 ECCP stated, “A well-designed compliance program should apply risk-based due diligence to its third-party relationships. Although the need for, and degree of, appropriate due diligence may vary based on the size and nature of the company, transaction, and third party, prosecutors should assess the extent to which the company has an understanding of the qualifications and associations of third-party partners, including the agents, consultants, and distributors that are commonly used to conceal misconduct, such as the payment of bribes to foreign officials in international business transactions.”

The question becomes how you use the information you obtained in the business justification and the questionnaire to determine an appropriate level of due diligence for the next step in the five-step process of third-party management. A three-step approach with varying levels of due diligence is the appropriate analysis to take going forward.

There are many different approaches to the specifics of due diligence. By laying out some of the approaches, you can craft the relevant portions of your program. The Level I, II, and III trichotomies appear to have the greatest favor and are ones that you should be able to implement in a straightforward manner. But the key is that you must assess your company’s risk and then manage that risk. If you need to perform additional due diligence to answer questions or clear red flags, you should do so. And do not forget to “Document, Document, and Document” all your due diligence.

Three key takeaways:

1. Level I due diligence should only be used when there is a low risk of corruption.

2. Level II due diligence is sufficient in a high-risk jurisdiction if there are no red flags to be cleared.

3. Level III due diligence is a deep-dive, boots-on-the-ground investigation.

For more information on Ethico and a free White Paper on top compliance issues in 2024, click here.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

31 Days to a More Effective Compliance Program: Day 21 – Managing Your Third Parties

The building blocks of any compliance program lay the foundations for a best practices compliance program. For instance, in the life cycle management of third parties, most compliance practitioners understand the need for a business justification, questionnaire, due diligence, evaluation, and compliance terms and conditions in contracts. However, as many companies mature in their compliance programs, the issue of third-party management becomes more important. It is also the one where the rubber meets the road of operationalizing compliance. It is also an area that the DOJ specifically articulated in the 2023 ECCP that companies need to consider.

Managing your third parties is where the rubber meets the road in your overall third-party risk management program. You must execute on this task. Even if you successfully navigate the first four steps in your third-party risk management program, those are the easy steps. Managing the relationship is where the real work begins.

Three key takeaways:

1. Have a strategic approach to third-party risk management.

2. Rank third parties based upon a variety of factors, including compliance and business performance, length of relationship, benchmarking metrics, and KPIs for ongoing monitoring and auditing.

3. Managing the relationship is where the real work begins.

For more information on Ethico and a free White Paper on top compliance issues in 2024, click here.

Categories
Blog

Managing Third Parties

The building blocks of any compliance program lay the foundations for a best practices compliance program. For instance, in the life cycle management of third parties, most compliance practitioners understand the need for a business justification, questionnaire, due diligence, evaluation and compliance terms and conditions in contracts. However, as many companies mature in their compliance programs, the issue of third-party management becomes more important. It is also the one where the rubber meets the road of operationalizing compliance. It is also an area the DOJ specifically articulated in the 2023 ECCP that companies need to consider.

The 2023 ECCP posed the following questions:

Risk-Based and Integrated Processes—How has the company’s third-party management process corresponded to the nature and level of the enterprise risk identified by the company? How has this process been integrated into the relevant procurement and vendor management processes?

Appropriate Controls—How does the company ensure there is an appropriate business rationale for the use of third parties? If third parties were involved in the underlying misconduct, what was the business rationale for using those third parties? What mechanisms exist to ensure that the contract terms specifically describe the services to be performed, that the payment terms are appropriate, that the described contractual work is performed, and that compensation is commensurate with the services rendered?

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? How does the company train its third-party relationship managers about compliance risks and how to manage them? How does the company incentivize compliance and ethical behavior by third parties? Does the company engage in risk management of third parties throughout the lifespan of the relationship, or primarily during the onboarding process?

Real Actions and Consequences—Does the company track red flags that are identified from due diligence of third parties and how those red flags are addressed? Does the company keep track of third parties that do not pass the company’s due diligence or that are terminated, and does the company take steps to ensure that those third parties are not hired or re-hired at a later date? If third parties were involved in the misconduct at issue in the investigation, were red flags identified from the due diligence or after hiring the third party, and how were they resolved? Has a similar third party been suspended, terminated, or audited as a result of compliance issues?

The key is to have a strategic approach to how you structure and manage your third-party relationships. This may mean more closely partnering with your third parties to help manage the anti-corruption compliance risk. It would certainly lead towards enabling your company to control risk while optimizing the performance of your third parties.

Amalgamate third parties but have fallbacks. It is incumbent to consolidate your third-party relationships to a smaller number to more fully operationalize your compliance program. This will make the entire third-party lifecycle easier to manage. However, a company must not “over-consolidate” by going down to a single source. You should build a diversified base, with through “dual-sourcing.” From the compliance perspective, you may want to have a primary and secondary third-party that you work with in a service line or geographic area to retain this redundancy.

Monitor any subcontracted work. This is one area that requires an appropriate level of compliance management. If your direct contracting party has the right or will need to subcontract some work out, you need to have visibility into this from the compliance perspective. You will need to require and monitor that your direct third-party relationship has your approved compliance terms and conditions in their contracts with their subcontractors. You will also need to test that proposition. In other words, you must require, trust and then verify.

Legal Protections. This is where your compliance terms and conditions will come into play. Consider a full indemnity if your third-party violates the FCPA and your company is dragged into an investigation because of the third-party’s actions. Such an indemnity may not be worth too much but if you do not have one, there will be no chance to recoup any of your legal or investigative costs. Another important clause is that any FCPA violation is a material breach of contract. This means that you can legally, under the terms of the contract, terminate it immediately, with no requirement for notice and cure. Once again you may be somewhat constrained by local laws but if you do not have the clause, you will have to give written notice and an opportunity to cure. This notice and cure process may be too long to satisfy the DOJ or SEC during the pendency of an investigation. Finally, you need a clause that requires your third-party to cooperate in any compliance investigation. This means cooperation with you and your designated investigation team, but it may also mean cooperation with U.S. governmental authorities as well.

Keep track of your third parties’ financial stability. This is one area that is not usually discussed in the compliance arena around third parties, but it seems almost self-evident. You can certainly imagine the disruption that could occur if your prime third-party supplier in a country or region went bankrupt; but in the compliance realm there is another untoward red flag that is raised in such circumstances. Those third parties under financial pressure may be more easily persuaded to engage in bribery and corruption than third parties that stand on a more solid financial footing. You can do this by a simple requirement that your third-party provide annual audited financial statements. For a worldwide logistics company, this should be something easily accomplished.

Formalize incentives for third-party performance. One of the key elements for any third-party contract is the compensation issue. If the commission rate is too high, it could create a very large pool of money that could be used to pay bribes. It is mandatory that your company link any commission or payment to the performance of the third-party. If you have a long-term stable relationship with a third-party, you can tie compensation into long-term performance, specifically including long-term compliance performance. This requires the third-party to put skin into the compliance game so that they have a vested, financial interest in getting things done in compliance.

By linking compensation to performance, there should be an increase in third-party performance. This is especially valuable when agreed upon key performance indicator (KPI) metrics can be accurately tracked. This would seem to be low hanging fruit for the compliance practitioner. If you cannot come up with some type of metric from the compliance perspective, you can work with your business relationship team to develop such compliance KPIs.

You should rank third parties based upon a variety of factors including performance, length of relationship, benchmarking metrics and compliance KPIs. This is a way for the compliance practitioner to have an ongoing risk ranking for third parties that can work as a preventative and even proscription prong of a compliance program and allow the delivery of compliance resources to those third parties that might need or even warrant them.

Auditing third parties. Critical to any best practices compliance program and an important tool in operationalizing your compliance program, this is a key way a company can manage the third-party relationship after the contract is signed and one which the government will expect you to engage in going forward.

Document review and selection is important for this process, you should ask for as much electronic information as possible well in advance of your audit. Request the following categories of documents; trial balance, chart of accounts, journal entry line items, financial and compliance policies, prior audited financial statements, bank records and statements, a complete list of agents or intermediaries and revenue by country and customer.

Regarding potential interviewees, focus on those who interact with government entities, foreign government officials or third parties, including those personnel involved with:

• Business leadership;

• Sales/marketing/business development;

• Operations;

• Logistics;

• Corporate functions such as human resources, finance, health, safety and environmental, real estate and legal

For the interview topics, there are several lines of inquiry. Remember this is an audit interview, not an investigative interview. Avail yourself of the opportunity to engage in training while you are interviewing people. The topics to interview on include:

• General policies and procedures;

• Books and records pertaining to compliance risks;

• Test knowledge of FCPA or other anti-corruption laws and their understanding of your company’s prohibitions;

• Regulatory challenges they may face;

• Any payments of taxes, fees or fines;

• Government interactions they have on your behalf; and

• Other compliance areas you may be concerned about or that would impact your company, including trade, anti-boycott, anti-money laundering (AML), anti-trust.

Managing your third parties is where the rubber meets the road in your overall third-party risk manage program. You must execute on this task. Even if you successfully navigate the first four steps in your third-party risk management program, those are the easy steps. Managing the relationship is where the real work begins.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

31 Days to a More Effective Compliance Program: Day 20 – The Third Party Risk Management Process

The DOJ expects an integrated approach that is operationalized throughout the company. This means you must have a process for the full life cycle of third-party risk management. There are five steps in the life cycle of third-party risk management that will fulfill the DOJ requirements as laid out in the 2023 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, and in the Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program. The five steps in the lifecycle of third-party management are:

1. Business Justification by the Business Sponsor.

2. Questionnaire to Third-party.

3. Due Diligence on the Third Party.

4. Compliance Terms and Conditions, including payment terms.

5. Management and Oversight of Third Parties After Contract Signing.

Three key takeaways:

1. Use the full 5-step process for third-party management.

2. Make sure you have business development involvement and buy-in.

3. Operationalize all steps going forward by including business unit representatives.

For more information on Ethico and a free White Paper on top compliance issues in 2024, click here.

Categories
Blog

The Third Party Risk Management Process

As every compliance practitioner is well aware, even in 2023, third parties still present the highest risk under the FCPA. The 2023 ECCP devotes an entire prong to third-party management. It begins with the following:

Prosecutors should also assess whether the company knows the business rationale for needing the third party in the transaction, and the risks posed by third-party partners, including the third-party partners’ reputations and relationships, if any, with foreign officials. For example, a prosecutor should analyze whether the company has ensured that contract terms with third parties specifically describe the services to be performed, that the third party is actually performing the work, and that its compensation is commensurate with the work being provided in that industry and geographical region. Prosecutors should further assess whether the company engaged in ongoing monitoring of the third-party relationships, be it through updated due diligence, training, audits, and/or annual compliance certifications by the third party.

This clearly specifies that the DOJ expects an integrated approach that is operationalized throughout the company. This means you must have a process for the full life cycle of third-party risk management. There are five steps in the life cycle of third-party risk management, which will fulfill the DOJ requirements as laid out in the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, and in the Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program. They five steps in the lifecycle of third-party management are:

1. Business Justification by Business Sponsor;

2. Questionnaire to Third-party;

3. Due Diligence on Third-party;

4. Compliance Terms and Conditions, including payment terms; and

5. Management and Oversight of Third Parties After Contract Signing.

Business Justification. The first step breaks down into two parts: business sponsor and business justification. The purpose of the business justification is to document the satisfactoriness of the business case to retain a third-party. The business justification should be included in the compliance review file assembled on every third-party at the time of initial certification and again if the third-party relationship is renewed. It is mandatory this document be filled out and completed by the business sponsor, who will be the primary contract with the third-party for the life of the business relationship.

Questionnaire. The term ‘questionnaire’ is mentioned several times in the 2012 FCPA Resource Guide. It is generally recognized as one of the tools that a company should complete in its investigation to better understand with whom it is doing business. This requirement is not only a key step but also a mandatory step for any third-party that desires to do work with your company. If a third-party does not want to fill out the questionnaire or will not fill it out completely; run, don’t walk, away from doing business with such a party.

One thing that you should keep in mind is that you will likely have pushback from your business team in making many of the inquiries listed above. However, most proposed agents that have done business with U.S. or U.K. companies have already gone through this process. Indeed, they understand that by providing this information on a timely basis, they can set themselves apart as more attractive to U.S. businesses.

Due diligence. Most compliance practitioners understand the need for a robust due diligence program to investigate third parties but have struggled with how to create an inventory to define the basis of risk of each foreign business partner and thereby perform the requisite due diligence. Getting your arms around due diligence can sometimes seem bewildering for the compliance practitioner.

The purpose is to encourage businesses to put in place due diligence procedures that adequately inform the application of proportionate measures designed to prevent persons associated with a company from engaging in bribery and corruption on their behalf. Due diligence acts as both a procedure for anti-bribery risk assessment and a risk mitigation technique. Further, both operate as compliance internal controls.

With this due diligence, you should then perform a triage. Triage is how you determine where each third party falls in the ranking of priorities. Asha Palmer, EVP at Convercent by One Trust, has noted that: “Appropriate due diligence may vary based upon company size, transaction, and type of third party. These categories and several others may determine how you choose to design your triage process.” Some of the common factors that determine how high-risk a third-party relationship may be:

• Type of third party (bank, consultancy, reseller, etc.)

• Contract value

• Country

• Government interaction

• Industry

After you have completed Steps 1–3 you are ready to move onto to Step 4, the contract. According to the 2012 FCPA Resource Guide, additional considerations include payment terms and how those payment terms compare to typical terms in that industry and country, as well as the timing of the third-party’s introduction to the business.” This means that you need to understand what the rate of commission is and whether it is reasonable for the services delivered. If the rate is too high, this could be indicia of corruption as high commission rates can create a pool of money to be used to pay bribes. If your company uses a distributor model in its sales side, then it needs to review the discount rates it provides to its distributors to ascertain that the discount rate it warranted.

The contract. You must evaluate the information and show that you have used it in your process. If it is incomplete, it must be completed. If there are red flags, which have appeared, these red flags must be cleared, or you must demonstrate how you will manage the risks identified. In other words, you must document that you have read, synthesized and evaluated the information garnered in the business justification, questionnaire and due diligence steps beforehand. As the DOJ and SEC continually remind us, a compliance program must be a living, evolving system and not simply a “check the box” exercise.

Management of the relationship. While the work done in the four steps above are absolutely critical, if you do not manage the relationship, it can all go downhill very quickly, and you might find yourself with a potential FCPA violation. There are several different ways that you should manage your post-contract relationship. The Evaluation clearly is focused on several key components that you need to evaluate and then re-evaluate during the pendency of the relationship. Incentivizing through compensation issues, training and ongoing monitoring through oversight and auditing are all key tools that the DOJ expects you to use going forward after the contract is signed.

Categories
Blog

How to Evaluate a Risk Assessment

After you complete your risk assessment, you must then translate it into a risk profile. If your estimate of where your bribery risk is greatest is wrong, it will be an effort to address it. As Ben Locwin explained in his BioProcess International article, entitled, Quality Risk Assessment and Management Strategies for Biopharmaceutical Companies:

Once we have assessed risks and determined a process that includes options to resolve and manage those risks whenever appropriate, then we can decide the level of resources with which to prioritize them. There always will be latent risks: those that we understand are there but that we cannot chase forever. But we need to make sure we have classified them correctly. With a good understanding of each of these, we are in a better position to speak about the quality of our businesses.

William C. Athanas, a partner in Holland and Knight, in an article in Industry Week entitled, Rethinking FCPA Compliance Strategies in a New Era of Enforcement, posited that companies assume that FCPA violations follow a bell curve in which most employees are responsible for most of the violations. However, Athanas believed that the distribution pattern more closely follows a hockey-stick distribution, where virtually all violations are committed by just a few people. Athanas concluded by noting that is this limited group of employees, or what he terms the “shaft of the hockey-stick,” to which a company should devote the majority of its compliance resources. With a proper risk assessment, a company can then focus its compliance efforts such as intensive training sessions or detailed analysis of key financial transactions involving those employees with the greatest means and motive to commit a violation.

The 2023 ECCP provided the following:

Risk Management Process—What methodology has the company used to identify, analyze, and address the particular risks it faces? What information or metrics has the company collected and used to help detect the type of misconduct in question? How have the information or metrics informed the company’s compliance program?

Updates and Revisions—Is the risk assessment current and subject to periodic review? Is the periodic review limited to a “snapshot” in time or based upon continuous access to operational data and information across functions? Has the periodic review led to updates in policies, procedures, and controls? Do these updates account for risks discovered through misconduct or other problems with the compliance program?

In the Treasury Department’s 2019 Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments (OFAC Framework), the provided greater clarity by stating in the section entitled, Risk Assessments, the following:

II. The organization has developed a methodology to identify, analyze, and address the particular risks it identifies. As appropriate, the risk assessment will be updated to account for the conduct and root causes of any apparent violations or systemic deficiencies identified by the organization during the routine course of business, for example, through a testing or audit function.

A way to evaluate risks as determined by the company’s risk assessment is through a risk matrix. Once risks are identified, they are then rated according to their significance and likelihood of occurring, and then plotted on a heat map to determine their priority. The most significant risks with the greatest likelihood of occurring are deemed the priority risks, which become the focus of your remedial efforts or for continuous auditing. A variety of solutions and tools can be used to manage these risks going forward, but the key step is to evaluate and rate these risks. All your actions should flow from the risk ranking.

There are several ways to look at ‘Likelihood’ factors. An Event can be highly likely if it is expected to occur. An Event can be likely with a strong possibility than an event will occur Event may occur at some point, even if there is no history to support it. It can be possible and there is sufficient historical incidence to support it. Finally, an Event can be unlikely and not expected, with only a slight possibility that it may occur. Responses to likelihood factors to consider include the existence of controls, written policies and procedures designed to mitigate risk capable of leadership to recognize and prevent a compliance breakdown; compliance failures or near misses; and training and awareness programs.

The priority rating is the likelihood rating and ratings that reflect the significance of particular risk universe. It is not a measure of compliance effectiveness or to compare efforts, controls or programs against peer groups.

The most significant risks with the greatest likelihood of occurring are deemed to be the priority risks. These become the focus of your most significant risk management efforts, couple with audit and monitoring going forward. A variety of tools can be used to continuously monitoring risk going forward. Consider providing employees with substantive training to guard against the most significant risks coming to pass and to keep the key messages fresh and top of mind. It is important to create a risk control summary that succinctly documents the nature of the risk and the actions taken to mitigate it. Finally, let this risk assessment and evaluation inform your compliance program, rather than letting the compliance program inform the risk assessment.

Categories
Blog

Risk Assessments

One cannot really say enough about risk assessments in the context of anti-corruption programs. This is because every corporate compliance program should be based on a risk assessment, on an understanding of your organization’s business from the commercial perspective, on how your organization has identified, assessed, and defined its risk profile and, finally, on the degree to which the program devotes appropriate scrutiny and resources to this range of risks. The 2023 ECCP added a new emphasis on the cadence of Risk Assessments, mandating that risk assessments should be done not less than annually, but in reality it should be done each time your risk changes. Over the past couple of years, every company’s risks changed in going to Work From Home to Return to the Office to the Hybrid Work environments of 2024. What about geopolitical issues, supply chain or even potential compliance risks in the 2024 election cycle. Have you assessed each of these new paradigms for risks from the compliance perspective?

As far back as 1999, in the Metcalf & Eddy enforcement action, the DOJ has said that risk assessments that measure the likelihood and severity of possible FCPA violations should direct your resources to manage these risks. The 2012 FCPA Guidance stated it succinctly when it said, “Assessment of risk is fundamental to developing a strong compliance program and is another factor DOJ and SEC evaluate when assessing a company’s compliance program.”

Having made clear what was risks needed to be assessed, the 2023 ECCP was focused on the methodology used in the risk assess process. It stated:

Risk Management Process—What methodology has the company used to identify, analyze, and address the particular risks it faces? What information or metrics has the company collected and used to help detect the type of misconduct in question? How have the information or metrics informed the company’s compliance program?

Risk-Tailored Resource Allocation—Does the company devote a disproportionate amount of time to policing low-risk areas instead of high-risk areas, such as questionable payments to third-party consultants, suspicious trading activity, or excessive discounts to resellers and distributors? Does the company give greater scrutiny, as warranted, to high-risk transactions (for instance, a large-dollar contract with a government agency in a high-risk country) than more modest and routine hospitality and entertainment?

Updates and Revisions—Is the risk assessment current and subject to periodic review? Is the periodic review limited to a “snapshot” in time or based upon continuous access to operational data and information across functions? Has the periodic review led to updates in policies, procedures, and controls? Do these updates account for risks discovered through misconduct or other problems with the compliance program?

Rick Messick, in his article, entitled, Corruption Risk Assessments: Am I Missing Something?, laid out the four steps of a risk assessment as follows:

First, all conceivable forms of corruption to which the organization, the activity, the sector, or the project might be exposed is catalogued. Second, an estimate of how likely it is that each of the possible forms of corruption will occur is prepared and third an estimate of the harm that will result if each occurrence is developed. The fourth step combines the chances of occurrence with the probability of its impact to produce a list of risks by priority.

What should you assess? In 2011, the DOJ concluded three FCPA enforcement actions which specified factors that a company should review when making a risk assessment. The three enforcement actions, involving Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Maxwell Technologies Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc., all had common areas that the DOJ indicated were compliance risk areas which should be evaluated for a minimum best practices compliance program. The Alcatel-Lucent and Maxwell Technologies Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) listed seven areas of risk to be assessed, which are still relevant today:

1. Where your company does business;

2. Geography-where does your Company do business;

3. Interaction with types and levels of governments;

4. Industrial sector of operations;

5. Involvement with joint ventures;

6. Licenses and permits in operations; and

7. Degree of government oversight.

The 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, laid out the following approach, “Factors to consider, for instance, include risks presented by: the country and industry sector, the business opportunity, potential business partners, level of involvement with governments, amount of government regulation and oversight, and exposure to customs and immigration in conducting business affairs. When assessing a company’s compliance program, DOJ and SEC take into account whether and to what degree a company analyzes and addresses the particular risks it faces.”

Another approach, as detailed by David Lawler in his book Frequently Asked Questions in Anti-Bribery and Corruption, is to break the risk areas into the following categories: 1) company risk, 2) country risk, 3) sector risk, 4) transaction risk, and 5) business partnership risk. He further detailed these categories as follows:

Company risk. Lawler believes this is “only to be likely to be relevant when assessing a number of different companies—either when managing a portfolio of companies from the perspective of a head office of a conglomerate or private equity house.” High risk companies involve some of the following characteristics:

• Private companies with a close shareholder group;

• Large, diverse and complex groups with a decentralized management structure;

• An autocratic top management;

• A previous history of compliance issues; and/or

• Poor marketplace perception

Country risk. This area involves countries which have a high reported level or perception of corruption, have failed to enact effective anti-corruption legislation and have a failure to be transparent in procurement and investment policies. The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (TI-CPI) can be a good starting point. Other indices you might consider are the Worldwide Governance Indicators and the Global Integrity index.

Sector risk. These involve areas that require a significant amount of government licensing or permitting to do business in a country. It includes the usual suspects of:

• Extractive industries;

• Oil and gas services;

• Large scale infrastructure areas;

• Telecoms;

• Pharmaceutical, medical device and healthcare; and/or

• Financial services

Transaction risk. Lawler says this risk “first and foremost identifies and analyses the financial aspects of a payment or deal. This means that it is necessary to think about where your money is ending up.” Indicia of transaction risk include:

• High reward projects;

• Involves many contractor or other third-party intermediaries; and/or

• Do not appear to have a clear legitimate object

Business partnership risk. This prong recognizes that certain manners of doing business present more corruption risk than others and may include:

• Use of third-party representatives in transactions with foreign government officials;

• A number of consortium partners or joint ventures partners; and/or

• Relationships with politically exposed persons (PEPs)

There are a number of ways you can slice and dice your basic risk assessment inquiry. As with almost all FCPA compliance, it is important that your protocol be well thought out. If you use one, some or all of the above as your basic inquiries for your risk analysis, it should be acceptable for your starting point.

Categories
Blog

Tailored and Effective Compliance Training

One of the key goals of any compliance program is to train employees in awareness and understanding of the FCPA; your specific company compliance program; and to create and foster a culture of compliance. While it seems axiomatic that compliance training is a mainstay of any best practices compliance program, the conversation around training has evolved over the years. The 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, started the conversation stating:

Compliance policies cannot work unless effectively communicated throughout a company. Accordingly, DOJ and SEC will evaluate whether a company has taken steps to ensure that relevant policies and procedures have been communicated throughout the organization, including through periodic training and certification for all directors, officers, relevant employees, and, where appropriate, agents and business partners.

Beginning in the fall of 2016, through the announcement of the FCPA Enforcement Pilot Program, the DOJ began to talk about whether you have determined the effectiveness of your training. This conversation continued with the 2017 Evaluation where it asked, “How has the company measured the effectiveness of the training?” This point has bedeviled many compliance professionals yet is now a key metric for the government in evaluating compliance training. It evolved further in the 2023 ECCP with the mandate that training must be “truly effective”. Finally, the training must be presented in a language in which the employees understand, which means in a local language, if the training is outside the US or other non-English-speaking countries.

Also raised in the 2017 Evaluation was the focus of your training programs, where the DOJ inquired into whether your training was “tailored” for the audience. This added two requirements. The first was to assess your employees for risk to determine the type of training you might need to deliver by risk ranking your employees. Obviously, the sales force would be the highest risk but there may be others who are deserving of high-risk training as well. From this risk ranking, you were required to develop tailored training for the risks those employees will face.

The 2023 ECCP spelled this out in greater detail. It stated, “Prosecutors should assess … periodic training and certification for all directors, officers, relevant employees, and, where appropriate, agents and business partners. Prosecutors should also assess whether the company has relayed information in a manner tailored to the audience’s size, sophistication, or subject matter expertise. … for instance, give employees practical advice or case studies to address real-life scenarios, and/or guidance on how to obtain ethics advice on a case-by-case basis as needs arise. Other companies have invested in shorter, more targeted training sessions to enable employees to timely identify and raise issues to appropriate compliance, internal audit, or other risk management functions. Prosecutors should also assess whether the training adequately covers prior compliance incidents and how the company measures the effectiveness of its training curriculum.”

Under Training and Communication, the following questions were posed by the DOJ:

Risk-Based Training—What training have employees in relevant control functions received? Has the company provided tailored training for high-risk and control employees, including training that addresses risks in the area where the misconduct occurred? Have supervisory employees received different or supplementary training? What analysis has the company undertaken to determine who should be trained and on what subjects?

Form/Content/Effectiveness of Training––Has the training been offered in the form and language appropriate for the audience? Is the training provided online or in-person (or both), and what is the company’s rationale for its choice? Has the training addressed lessons learned from prior compliance incidents? Whether online or in-person, is there a process by which employees can ask questions arising out of the trainings? How has the company measured the effectiveness of the training? Have employees been tested on what they have learned? How has the company addressed employees who fail all or a portion of the testing? Has the company evaluated the extent to which the training has an impact on employee behavior or operations?

I would suggest that you start at the beginning with an evaluation of your compliance training and move outward. This means starting with attendance, which many companies tend to overlook. You should determine that all senior management and Board members have attended compliance training. You should review the documentation and confirm attendance. Make your department or group leaders accountable for the attendance of their direct reports and so on down the chain. Evidence of training is important to create an audit trail for any internal or external assessment or audit of your training program.

Some other metrics you should consider in the post-training evaluation phase include an increase in hotline use; are there more calls into the compliance department requesting assistance or even asking questions about compliance? Is there a decrease in compliance violations or other acts of non-compliance?

Consider using surveys to provide feedback on not simply compliance training but to determine effectiveness of a much wider variety of areas for your compliance program. These surveys can provide critical information on the state of your compliance program and provide substantive feedback for further inclusion back into your compliance program. Testing your program and using that information in a feedback loop is another key component of a best practices compliance program.

What are “espresso shots” of training to help facilitate effective training? Tina Rampino, Associate Managing Director, at K2 Integrity suggests keeping your compliance training segments concise as “shorter, bite-size learning is a trend in training programs.” This means that instead of offering half-day and full-day sessions, break programs into shorter segments of 20 minutes or less, which are easier for participants to absorb—and schedule. Jessica Czeczuga, a Principal Instructional Designer, suggested training effectiveness through micro-learning and metrics; including the adoption of micro-learning techniques for content delivery, the utilization of interruptive training methods for behavior disruption and tailoring targeted training for at-risk employees.

The importance of determining effectiveness of your compliance program has been enshrined by the DOJ. The 2023 Update confirmed that the DOJ wants to see evidence of the effectiveness of your compliance program. This is something that many CCOs and compliance professionals still struggle to determine. Both the simple guidelines suggested herein, the more robust assessment and results provide you with a start to fulfill the precepts set out by the DOJ, as you will eventually need to demonstrate the effectiveness of your compliance training going forward.

Categories
Blog

Internal Controls

What are internal controls? The best definition I have come across is from Jonathan Marks, partner at BDO, who defined internal controls as:

An internal control is an action or process of interlocking activities designed to support the policies and procedures detailing the specific preventative, detective, corrective, directive and corroborative actions required to achieve the desired process outcomes or the objectives(s). This, along with continuous auditing, continuous monitoring and training reasonably assures:

• The achievement of the process objectives linked to the organization’s objectives;

• Operational effectiveness and efficiency;

• Reliable (complete and accurate) books and records (financial reporting);

• Compliance with laws, regulations and policies; and

• The reduction of risk-fraud, waste and abuse, which, aids in the decline of process and policy variation, leading to more predictive outcomes.

What specifically are internal controls in a compliance program? The starting point is the FCPA itself, which requires issuers to devise and maintain a system of internal controls that can reasonably assure:

1. Transactions are executed in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization;

2. Transactions are recorded as necessary (I) to permit preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles or any other criteria applicable to such statements, and (II) to maintain accountability for assets;

3. Access to assets is permitted only in accordance with management’s general or specific authorization; and

4. The recorded accountability for assets is compared with the existing assets at reasonable intervals and appropriate action is taken with respect to any differences.

The DOJ and SEC, in the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, 2nd edition, stated:

Internal controls over financial reporting are the processes used by companies to provide reasonable assurances regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements. They include various components, such as: a control environment that covers the tone set by the organization regarding integrity and ethics; risk assessments; control activities that cover policies and procedures designed to ensure that management directives are carried out (e.g., approvals, authorizations, reconciliations, and segregation of duties); information and communication; and monitoring. … The design of a company’s internal controls must take into account the operational realities and risks attendant to the company’s business, such as: the nature of its products or services; how the products or services get to market; the nature of its work force; the degree of regulation; the extent of its government interaction; and the degree to which it has operations in countries with a high risk of corruption.

This was supplemented in the 2023 ECCP, with a pair of pointed questions: whether a company has made significant investigation into its internal controls and have they been tested, then remediated based upon the testing?

The whole concept of internal controls is that companies need to focus on where the risks—compliance or otherwise—are and then allocate their limited resources to putting controls in place that address those risks. In the compliance world, of course, your two biggest risks are 1) company assets or resources, marketing expenses, petty cash or other sources of funds being used to pay a bribe, and 2) diversion of company assets, such as unauthorized sales discounts or receivables and write offs used to pay a bribe.

There are four significant controls for the compliance practitioner to implement initially. They are:

1. Delegation of authority (DOA);

2. Maintenance of the vendor master file;

3. Contracts with third parties; and

4. Movement of cash/currency.

Your DOA should reflect the impact of compliance risk including both transactions and geographic location so that a higher level of approval for matters involving third parties, for fund transfers and invoice payments to countries outside the US would be required inside your company.

Next is the vendor master file, which can be a powerful preventative control tool largely because payments to fictitious vendors are one of the most common occupational frauds. The vendor master file should be structured so that each vendor can be identified not only by risk level but also by the date on which the vetting was completed and the vendor received final approval. There should be electronic controls in place to block payments to any vendor for which vetting has not been approved. Internal controls are needed over the submission, approval, and input of changes to the vendor master file.

Contracts with third parties can be a very effective internal control that works to prevent nefarious conduct rather than simply as a detect control. For contracts to provide effective internal controls, however, relevant terms of those contracts—including, for instance, the commission rate, reimbursement of business expenses, use of subagents, etc.,—should be made available to those who process and approve vendor invoices.

All situations involving the movement of cash or transfer of monies outside the US—including such methods as computer checks, manual checks, wire transfers, replenishment of petty cash, loans, and advances—should be reviewed from the compliance risk standpoint. This means identifying the ways in which a country manager or a sales manager could cause funds to be transferred to their control and to conceal the true nature of the use of the funds within the accounting system.

To prevent these types of activities, internal controls need to be in place. All wire transfers outside the US should have defined approvals in the DOA. The persons who execute the wire transfers should be required to evidence agreement of the approvals to the DOA, and wire transfer requests going out of the US should always require dual approvals. Lastly, wire transfer requests going outside the US should be required to include a description of proper business purpose.

The bottom line is that internal controls are just good financial controls. The internal controls that detail requirements for third-party representatives in the compliance context will help to detect fraud, which could well lead to bribery and corruption. As an exercise, map your existing internal controls to the Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program or some other well-known anti-corruption regime to see where gaps may exist. This will help you to determine whether adequate compliance internal controls are present in your company. From there you can move to see if they are working in practice.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

Day 31 to a More Effective Compliance Program: Day 13 – Policies and Procedures

There are numerous reasons to put some serious work into your compliance policies and procedures. They are certainly the first line of defense when the government comes knocking. The 2023 ECCP made clear that “Any well-designed compliance program entails policies and procedures that give both content and effect to ethical norms and that address and aim to reduce risks identified by the company as part of its risk assessment process.” This statement made clear that the regulators will take a strong view against a company that does not have well-thought-out and articulated policies and procedures against bribery and corruption, all of which are systematically reviewed and updated. Moreover, having policies written out and signed by employees provides what some consider the most vital layer of communication and acts as an internal control. Together with a signed acknowledgement, these documents can serve as evidentiary support if a future issue arises. In other words, the “Document, Document, and Document” mantra applies just as strongly to policies and procedures in anti-corruption compliance.

Three key takeaways:

1. Written compliance policies and procedures, together with the Code of Conduct, form the backbone of your compliance program.

2. The DOJ and SEC expect a well-thought-out and articulated set of compliance policies and procedures and that they be adequately communicated throughout your organization.

3. Institutional fairness for the application of policies and procedures demands consistent application of your policies and procedures across the globe.