Tag: policies

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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Written Standards: Day 11 – Charitable Donation Enforcement Actions

When is a rose not a rose? When it is a charitable donation not made for philanthropic purposes and violates the FCPA. This was a feature of the Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) FCPA enforcement action brought by the SEC in 2012, involving a bribery scheme utilized by Lilly in Poland. The scheme and FCPA violations mirrored an earlier FCPA enforcement action, also brought by the SEC as a civil matter, rather than by the DOJ as a criminal matter, against another U.S. entity Schering-Plough, for making charitable donations in Poland which violated the FCPA. One of the remarkable things about both of these enforcement actions, brought almost eight years apart, was that they involved improper payments to the same Polish charitable foundation to wrongfully influence the same Polish government official to purchase products from both of these companies.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Every compliance practitioner should study both the Lilly and Schering-Plough enforcement actions.
  2. What is the purpose of the charitable entity you are making a donation to?
  3. “Document, Document, and Document” your due diligence around donors.

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

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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Written Standards: Day 1 – Introduction to Written Standards

The cornerstone of any best practices compliance program is written protocols. This includes a Code of Conduct, policies and procedures. These elements have long been memorialized in the US Sentencing Guidelines; the Department Of Justice’s (DOJs) Opinion Releases regarding compliance programs, the 2012 FCPA Guidance, both DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions, the 2019 Guidance and FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy.
There are three levels of standards and controls, Code of Conduct standards and policies and procedures. Every company should have a Code of Conduct that expresses its ethical principles. But a Code of Conduct is not enough. The Code of Conduct is implemented through your compliance policies. It is further operationalized through your compliance procedures. The DOJ spoke to their importance in the 2019 Guidance when it stated, “As a threshold matter, prosecutors should examine whether the company has a code of conduct that sets forth, among other things, the company’s commitment to full compliance with relevant Federal laws that is accessible and applicable to all company employees.” As a corollary, prosecutors should also assess whether the company has established policies and procedures that incorporate the culture of compliance into its day-to-day operations.

At the end of the 31 Days you will have a very detailed grounding on better written standards for your compliance program. You will be able to utilize the information presented to implement a more effective compliance program for your organization. 

Three key takeaways: 

  1. The cornerstone of any best practices compliance program is its written protocols.
  2. Written standards work to prevent, detect and remediate.
  3. What are the specific written protocols you should have in your compliance program?

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

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Compliance Into the Weeds

300th Anniversary Episode – Policies Policies Policies

The award-winning, Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast that takes a deep dive into a compliance-related topic, literally going into the weeds to explore a subject. In this special 300th Anniversary episode, we consider a recent academic paper that suggests that policies play a small role in persuading employees not to engage in bribery and corruption. Highlights include:

·       What did the paper conclude?

·       What is the role of procedures?

·       Tom details the one function of policies.

·       How does an operationalized compliance program work?

·       What is the intersection of policies and internal controls?

 Resources

Matt in Radical Compliance

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Innovation in Compliance

The Six Elements of an Effective Compliance Program: Part 3 – Policies, Procedures and Controls: the Backbone of Your Compliance Program


Welcome to a special five-part podcast series, The Six Elements of an Effective Compliance Program. This podcast series is sponsored by StoneTurn. To celebrate Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week, we will consider each of the six elements required for an effective compliance program. They include: Risk Assessment, Governance and Structure, Policies Procedures and Controls, Training and Education, Oversight and Reporting, and Response and Enhancements. Over this five-part podcast series, I will be joined by Stephen Martin and Valerie Charles, Partners at StoneTurn and Toby Ralston and Jamen Tyler, Managing Directors at StoneTurn. In this third episode, I visit with Toby Ralston on why policies, procedures and internal controls are the backbone of your compliance program. Highlights include:

  • Why is the Code of Conduct foundational?
  • Is one of the key functions of compliance policies to provide a deeper level of guidance?
  • What audience should a Code of Conduct, policies and procedures be written towards? Should they be translated into local languages? Should you have employees attest to reading them or use some other model to demonstrate effectiveness?
  • Why should Internal Controls for compliance be tied to your risk assessment? How do you do so?
  • Internal controls are often seen as financial controls. Can you discuss some instances of non-financial controls and their importance?

Resources
For more information on StoneTurn, click here.