Tag: CCO

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 9 – The Competitive Advantage of Data

The DOJ and SEC have both made it clear that they expect companies to be more robust in their use of data analytics in compliance programs. This means using data not only to detect and prevent illegal conduct but also in the remediation prong of any best practices compliance program through continuous improvement. In 2019, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Matthew Miner said in a speech that the DOJ will inquire whether compliance departments have access to internal data that could help them identify misconduct and whether compliance officers make adequate use of data analytics in their reviews of companies under investigation. Since at least 2016, in the FCPA enforcement action involving Key Energy Services, Inc., the SEC has been communicating to compliance professionals the need for increased use of data and data analytics in any compliance program.

The bottom line is that it is not if but when you begin to incorporate corporate information into your compliance program to make your compliance program more efficient, and your business process run more effectively. Let’s start now to identify the data you have access to and the data to which you currently do not have access. Find a way to bridge that gap.

Three key takeaways:

  1. DOJ pronouncements mandate CCO availability to and use of data.
  2. Data can be an actionable solution across geographic and business lines.
  3. Use data as a business strategy.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
Daily Compliance News

Daily Compliance News: October 11, 2023 – The Where Have All the CCOs Gone Edition

Welcome to the Daily Compliance News. Each day, Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, brings you compliance-related stories to start your day. Sit back, enjoy a cup of morning coffee, and listen in to the Daily Compliance News. All from the Compliance Podcast Network. Each day, we consider four stories from the business world: compliance, ethics, risk management, leadership, or general interest for the compliance professional.

Stories we are following in today’s edition:

  • Roger Ng heads to Malaysia.  (AP)
  • When your ex testifies in a fraud case. (Law360)
  • Corruption in Canada? (Bloomberg)
  • Crypto is having trouble getting CCOs. (WSJ)
Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 8 – The Compliance Function into the 2030s and Beyond

Today, we look at the Compliance Function. The pandemic accelerated changes in compliance that have been percolating for the last few years. Indeed, I believe that in as short a time as 5 years, 2020 will be seen as an inflection point in compliance, IE., the Year When Everything Changed. There are four major changes I would like to highlight and what these changes portend for compliance down the road.

Compliance Convergence. In 2019, there were three significant releases of information by the federal government, which directly impacted compliance professionals.

Public/private partnership in the anti-corruption fight. Over the past few years, the DOJ has gone far toward laying out real incentives for corporations to help in the fight against the international scourge of bribery and corruption.

Data, Data, Data. The DOJ has made it clear that it expects companies to be more robust in their use of data analytics in compliance programs.

Compliance as the Ethical Edge. We have known for many years that companies with more robust compliance programs were most generally better-run companies.

This academic research and other case studies demonstrate that effective compliance programs equate to more efficient business processes and lead to greater profitability. As senior business leaders come to understand this message, they will (properly) see compliance as a business process that can be analyzed and improved through continuous improvement to make companies run more efficiently and, at the end of the day, more profitably. These companies do not make money because they have a better heart. They are more profitable because they are better run. Finally, all of this ties back to a requirement from the DOJ for continuous improvement of your compliance program.

Three key takeaways:

  1. It’s all about compliance now.
  2. Compliance connectedness.
  3. It’s all about the data.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 7 – Skills for the Compliance Professional in 2025 and Beyond

What should compliance practitioners do to move themselves forward professionally in 2025 and beyond? To consider this question, I drew inspiration from the Financial Times (FT) piece entitled “Work in the 2020s: 5 essential skills to succeed” by Lyndsey Jones. In this article, Jones laid out five areas where workers need to have skills that will keep abreast of the ever-evolving marketplace. They are: (1) Adapt to thrive, (2) Be creative, (3) Develop emotional intelligence, (4) Become tech-savvy, and (5) Build your brand.

Being a compliance professional in the coming decade will be one of the most challenging, rewarding, and exciting professions for anyone to engage in. You have the opportunity to help lead not only your organization but also your profession. To paraphrase Alyson Van Hooser, will you put your (compliance) stake in the ground and own it? For your sake and the sake of the compliance profession going forward, I hope you will do so.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Adapt to thrive as you are only limited by your imagination.
  2. Build your brand and deliver.
  3. Be creative.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Compliance Through Innovation: Day 6 – Future of Compliance Training

Where is compliance training headed? In the 2020 Update, the DOJ stated, “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.” While this tactical solution has proven useful, I wanted to consider the broader compliance training themes that compliance professionals have learned over the past few years to gain insight into where compliance training may be headed. I sat down with Shawn Rogers, Senior Director, Global Ethics & Compliance at Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., to provide some thoughts on the veiled land of the future of compliance training.

Compliance training needs to get to the point where managers and leaders drive compliance training based on how they perceive the risks in their organizations. In other words, an awareness of risks can permeate the organization to such a degree that managers will be able to recognize when their employees need training and can call on the compliance function to provide custom training opportunities.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Business crises almost always begin with a culture failure.
  2. Focus your most detailed training on those employees who are truly high-risk.
  3. This is the “just-in-time” training model that provides training exactly when and where the employee needs the information.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 5 – Communication to see Around Corners

The more you can operationalize compliance, the more it works to operationalize culture in your organization. It works for all levels of a company, literally from the Boardroom to the shop floor. The DOJ and SEC recognized this when they noted in their 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, “A compliance program should apply from the board room to the supply room – no one should be beyond its reach.” Yet culture can provide more than simply an ethical foundation, and it is also a part of the business foundation of an entity.

Using such an approach to communications allows a CCO to “see around corners” and can be one of the greatest strengths of a best practices compliance program. The reason is listening. Listening is a key leadership component, and there are certainly many ways to listen. You can sit in your office and wait for a call or report on the hotline, or you can go out into the field and find out what challenges employees are facing. From this, you can work with them to craft a solution that works for the company and holds to the company’s ethical and compliance values.

Using social media tools, a CCO can move towards Thomas’ next key ingredient of a successful corporate culture, which is trust. Thomas said, “I’m obsessive about the culture that we create specifically around trust, and this is an adjustment for some people when they come here. If you join our team, there’s trust by default here. That means you trust in the competence of your teammates. You trust in their intentions and what they’re saying. At some companies, the culture is that trust is earned over time, but that means if everyone in the organization says you have to earn trust, the amount of energy that actually goes into the trust-earning process is a distraction from our mission.”

Three key takeaways:

  1. A company can fail if it does not get its culture right.
  2. Using communications to “see around corners.”
  3. Trust works as a business strategy.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
Into the Chair - Tales from Chief Compliance Officers

Into the Chair, Tales from Chief Compliance Officers: Discovering a Passion for Compliance – Mario Chilin’s Journey into the CCO Chair

Welcome to the latest edition to the Compliance Podcast Network: Into the Chair: Tales from Chief Compliance Officers 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 successfully 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. Into the Chair: Tales from Chief Compliance Officers is a Comply podcast hosted by Tom Fox and is a production of the Compliance Podcast Network. In this episode, I visit with Mario Chilin the Chief Compliance Officer at EP Wealth Advisors.

Mario Chilin is a seasoned professional in the compliance field, boasting a robust background in the financial industry, with degrees from California State University and Pennsylvania State University, and a paralegal certificate from Cerritos College. His perspective on his career in compliance is overwhelmingly positive, having discovered a passion for the field while working at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi. Despite the challenges he faces as a Chief Compliance Officer, such as limited resources and the growing threat of cybersecurity, Chilin remains dedicated to his profession. His experiences, from working in operations during the 2008 financial crisis to his current role at EP Wealth Advisors, have only fueled his belief that others who delve into compliance will find the same passion and excitement. Join Tom Fox and Mario Chilin as they delve deeper into this topic on the next episode of the Into the Chair podcast.

Key Highlights

·      Unexpected Paths to a Successful Compliance Career

·      Navigating the Regulatory Side of Finance

·      Maximizing Resources and Cybersecurity: Compliance Officer Challenges

Resources

Mario Chilin on LinkedIn

EP Wealth Advisors

Comply

Connect with Tom Fox

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

LinkedIn

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Written Standards: Day 15 – Enforcement Actions Featuring Facilitation Payments

One of the more confusing areas of the FCPA is in that of facilitation payments. Facilitation payments are small bribes but make no mistake about it, they are bribes. For that reason, many companies feel they are inconsistent with a company culture of doing business ethically and in compliance with laws prohibiting corruption and bribery. Further, the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide specified, “while the payment may qualify as an exception to the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, it may violate other laws, both in Foreign Country and elsewhere. In addition, if the payment is not accurately recorded, it could violate the FCPA’s books and records provision.” Additionally, the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide stated, “Whether a payment falls within the exception is not dependent on the size of the payment, though size can be telling, as a large payment is more suggestive of corrupt intent to influence a non-routine governmental action. But, like the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions more generally, the facilitating payments exception focuses on the purpose of the payment rather than its value.”
In addition to these clear statements about whether the FCPA should continue to allow said bribes; you should also consider the administrative nightmare for any international company. The U.K. Bribery Act does not have any such exception, exemption or defense along the lines of the FCPA facilitation payment exception. This means that even if your company allows facilitation payments, it must exempt out every U.K. Company or subsidiary from the policy. Further, if your company employs any U.K. citizens, they are subject to the U.K. Bribery Act no matter who they work for and where they may work in the world, so they must also be exempted. Finally, if your U.S. Company does business with a U.K. or other company subject to the U.K. Bribery Act, you may be prevented contractually from making facilitation payments while working under that customer’s contract. As I said, an administrative nightmare.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Do not forget the administrative nightmare of facilitation payments for international organizations.
  2. The Kay decision made clear how narrow the “routine government action” exception is.
  3. Facilitation payments will usually be an add-on as they are symptomatic of an ineffective compliance program.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

Categories
FCPA Compliance Report

FCPA Compliance Report – Carlos Villagrán Muñoz on Implementing Effective Compliance Programs in Latin America

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this episode, Tom Fox welcomes Carlos Villagrán Muñoz, Chief Compliance Officer at CMPC in Chile. We discuss operationalizing compliance at CMPC and in Latin America.

Carlos Villagrán Muñoz is a seasoned Chilean attorney with considerable experience in implementing and advancing compliance programs in Latin America. His perspective on the subject is shaped by his extensive experience and understanding of the unique challenges in the region. Carlos identifies two major hurdles in implementing effective compliance programs in Latin America: the need to tailor programs to both global and local contexts due to cultural nuances and differing perceptions of corruption and the pressing issue of money laundering, fueled by illegal activities such as corruption, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. He believes that Latin America lags in anti-money laundering efforts, which are crucial in combating corruption, and advocates for compliance programs that address these issues while considering cultural differences. Join Tom Fox and Carlos Villagrán Muñoz as they delve deeper into these topics and more in this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report podcast.

 Key Highlights

·      CMPC’s Compliance Program Addressing Antitrust Infringement

·      Navigating Cultural Nuances and Money Laundering: Compliance Challenges in Latin America

·      CMPC’s Comprehensive Compliance Training Program

·      The Rise of Technologically Savvy Compliance Experts in Chile

·      Dynamic Networking Opportunities for Compliance Professionals

Resources

Carlos Villagrán Muñoz on LinkedIn

The FinCEN Report Company

Tom Fox

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

LinkedIn

Categories
Data Driven Compliance

The Uses of Data Driven Compliance: Part 5 – Compliance Successes Using Data Driven Compliance

Welcome to Data Driven Compliance. In this podcast, we discuss how to use data to improve and enhance the effectiveness of your compliance program, creating greater business efficiency, all leading to more return on investment for your compliance regime. Join host Tom Fox as he explores how data will drive your compliance program to the next level. This podcast is sponsored by KonaAI.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Vince Walden, founder and CEO of KonaAI, for a podcast series on the uses of data driven compliance. Over these five podcasts, we have discussed generative AI and ChatGPT in compliance, the profiles of a corrupt payment, making the business case for data-driven compliance, what to ask for and how to ask for it, and some success stories. In this concluding Part 5, we will look at some compliance successes using a data driven approach.

In the world of business, compliance is a critical aspect that ensures organizations adhere to legal and ethical standards. Compliance not only helps companies avoid legal troubles but also plays a significant role in improving business efficiency and profitability. In this episode, Tom and Vince considered the advanced compliance tools for fraud detection and cost savings. Our discussion entailed a comprehensive analysis of the key factors that impact advanced compliance tools for fraud detection and cost savings, exploring the tradeoffs involved, the challenges faced, and the importance of considering the impact on decision-making.

Key Highlights:

  • Invoice Price Discrepancy Detection and Recovery
  • Compliance-driven Efficiency through Fraud Risk Analysis
  • Shifting Travel Expenses for Manufacturing Observations
  • Integrating Multiple Data Sources for Fraud Detection

Resources:

Connect with Vince Walden on LinkedIn

Check out Kona AI

Connect with Tom Fox on LinkedIn