Tag: The Compliance Handbook

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 1 – Originating a Compliance Ecosystem

The compliance profession is at an inflection point, moving away from the lawyer-driven written policies and procedures to a more operationalized regime where compliance is a part of the overall ecosystem embedded directly in the business process-focused discipline. Seen in this manner, compliance will be seen not as a cost center but as a value creation center, helping the company to make business processes more efficient and then more profitable. To be the orchestrator and prime mover of a compliance ecosystem, you need a superior compliance service that is hard to replicate. This means some combination of compliance, an extensive network of internal users, and strong branding.

Compliance is undergoing a paradigm shift as a result of technological and digital innovation. CCOs who cannot interpret the data from their systems will likely find themselves consigned to the dustbin of corporate luddites. Compliance will be moving into a new era of collaboration and connection to more fully operationalize compliance to make all business stakeholders more efficient and more profitable.

Three Key Takeaways:

  1. Compliance is undergoing a paradigm shift as a result of technological and digital innovation.
  2. To be the orchestrator and prime mover of a compliance ecosystem, you need a superior service that is hard to replicate.
  3. Compliance should help other corporate functions.

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

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Written Standards: Day 4 – Code of Conduct: Structure and Format

Next comes the evolution of the structure and format of a best practices Code of Conduct. Initially, my experience with this is that they were written by lawyers, largely for lawyers. This included ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’ liberally sprinkled throughout a lengthy written document. This was what is now referred to as Code 1.0. The compliance community then evolved to Code 2.0, where the writing was less turgid, moved to more employee-friendly language, and then somewhere along the line we started putting in hyperlinks, pictures, and videos.
There are two factors that a company should consider in the structure of a Code of Conduct. The first is to consider how your organization generally communicates, overlaid with the most effective way to communicate with the various stakeholders who will read and use it. These stakeholders can include such diverse groups as employees, shareholders and third parties on both the sales and supply side of your business. This may require multiple approaches.
Be sure to make your code readable. This is beyond simply eliminating legalese. It is writing English at a grade level that is sufficient for your employee population. It may be that an eighth-grade language level is appropriate for your workforce. However, if you have a population consisting primarily of professionals, translating it into the appropriate languages it might be appropriate to aim for a higher level of language. Finally, you do not have to say the same thing, in multiple different ways.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Companies have moved past having a Code of Conduct written by lawyers for lawyers to a fully interactive code for all employees.
  2. Consider how information is distributed at your organization as a basis for communication in your Code of Conduct.
  3. Your Code of Conduct must be readable, in both in English and native language for non-English speaking employees.

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

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to Better Reporting and Investigations – Selection of Investigative Counsel

Dan Dunne, in a Compliance and Ethics Professional article, entitled “Foxes and henhouses: The importance of independent counsel”, discussed what he termed a “critical element” in any investigation, which he denominated as “fair and objective evaluation.” Dunne wrote that a key component of this fair and objective evaluation is the Who question: who should supervise the investigation and who should handle the study? Dunne’s clear conclusion is that independent counsel should handle any serious investigation.

There are three reasons for a company to retain independent counsel for internal investigations of severe whistleblower complaints. First, André Agassi was right, perception is reality. Secondly, if regular outside counsel investigates their own prior legal work or legal advice, a very large and potentially messy number of loyalty and privilege issues can arise in the internal investigation. The third reason is the relationship of the regular outside counsel or law firm with regulatory authorities. If a company’s regular outside counsel performs the internal investigation and the results turn out favorably for the company, the regulators may ask if the investigation was a whitewash or at the very least, less than robust. If the SEC or DOJ cannot rely on a company’s own internal investigation, it may perform the investigation all over again with its own personnel. Further, these regulators may believe that the company, and its law firm, have engaged in a cover-up. This is certainly not the way to buy credibility.
Three key takeaways:

  1. Serious allegations demand a serious response, with seriously good lawyers leading the investigation.
  2. Credibility is the biggest thing that any person or company brings to the table when sitting across from the DOJ or SEC.
  3. The use of regular corporate counsel can negatively impact your investigation because of the issues of loyalty and privilege.

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

Categories
31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to More Effective Internal Controls – Internal Controls for Third Parties

Bribery built into the fabric of Chinese healthcare system”, reporters Jamil Anderlini and Tom Mitchell wrote about the ‘nuts and bolts of how bribery occurs in the healthcare industry in China. The authors quoted Shaun Rein, a Shanghai-based consultant and author of “The End of Cheap China,” for the following “This is a systemic problem, and foreign pharmaceutical companies are in a conundrum. If they want to grow in China, they must give bribes. It’s not a choice because officials in the health ministry, hospital administrators, and doctors demand it.”

It would be reasonable to expect that internal controls over gifts would be designed to ensure that all gifts satisfy the required criteria, as defined and interpreted in Company policies. It should fall to a Compliance Officer to finalize and approve a definition of permissible and non-permissible gifts, travel, and entertainment, and internal controls will follow from such definition or criteria set by the company. These criteria would include the amount of the spend, localized down into increased risk, such as the higher risk recognized in China. Within this context, there are four general internal controls to consider. 

Three Key Takeaways:

  1. GSK in China continues to be an example of the lack of internal controls for an effective compliance program.
  2. General areas of review for internal compliance controls.
  3. Third parties are still at the highest risk of corruption-related issues.

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

Categories
Blog

The Compliance Handbook, 3rd Edition is Available

As the Compliance Evangelist, I am pleased to announce the release of the Compliance Handbook, Third Edition. It is published by LexisNexis.
This edition is an update of the Compliance Handbook, 3rd edition handbook is a must read for all ethics and compliance professionals.  The Third Edition provides practical and helpful solutions on important ethics and compliance issues.  It is comprehensive, accessible and a must-have for every ethics and compliance professional.
Once again, I have teamed up with the top legal publisher, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, to lead its series of compliance offerings. The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition, is designed to provide the seasoned compliance professionals, and those new to the profession, with practical, actionable guidance and tools needed to design, create, implement and continually enhance a best practices compliance program.
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition provides an in-depth look at the latest thinking and trends for the full range of critical compliance topics, including:

  • Compliance and business ventures
  • Third party risk management
  • The Board’s Role in Compliance
  • Continuous improvement
  • Compliance innovation
  • And much more

The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition also takes a close look at the role of all professionals with compliance responsibility, from Compliance Officers and Boards of Directors, to Human Resources to Internal Audit and Internal Controls and Communications and Training professionals. Understanding compliance responsibility across the organization continues to be a key theme of both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). With this 3rd edition, I expand on the concepts articulated in the original editions of operationalizing your compliance program.
What’s new for the 3rd edition?

  • The role of compliance in ESG
  • Key FCPA enforcement actions from 2022
  • Key innovations in compliance which came out of the Covid-19 pandemic
  • New strategies in training and communications
  • Looking forward to compliance in 2025 and beyond.

The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition incorporates the most current government pronouncements governing best practices compliance programs including the 2019 Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs released by the DOJ Fraud Section and its 2020 Update; the updated FCPA Resource Guide 2nd edition; the Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments; the 2019 DOJ Antitrust Division’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in Criminal Antitrust and most significantly the speech by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, reinstituting the requirements from the Yates Memo, the renewed use of monitors, all encapsuled in the Monaco Doctrine.
The Compliance Handbook 3rd edition is available in both print and eBook editions.  LexisNexis Legal & Professional is giving a discount of 20% for any presale purchase. Use the code FOX20 and go here.

Categories
FCPA Compliance Report

Tom Fox on Best Seller TV – The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition


Ed. Note-I was recently interviewed on Best Seller TV about my book, The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program, Second Edition. This video of the interview appears with the permission of Best Seller TV.

On this episode of Best Seller T,V Tom Fox, author of The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program, Second Edition, addresses what best practices can be put in place for companies to run more efficiently and generate more profits. Fox, who began working in the compliance industry in 2007, was a lawyer by trade, but felt compelled to switch careers because he saw an opportunity to help make a difference and help corporations be more efficient. Fox says the United Nations estimates that $3 trillion are lost annually to corruption. He saw the opportunity to help corporations build first-class best practice compliance programs by complying with the law and run the business side a lot smoother.

Compliance is setting up systems, processes, and procedures that comply with a law and/or regulation. With laws constantly changing, Fox wrote the second edition of the book to instruct readers on the latest compliance laws that might affect them on a regular basis. Since his first edition in 2018, there has been a 40 percent change in laws, especially after the SEC and the Department of Justice made significant changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The pandemic also helped exacerbate many more changes.

The book is for a wide variety of readers, starting with compliance professionals, laying out a blueprint on how to build world-class compliance programs or enhance currently existing programs. The book is also for c-suite and senior executives to help educate them on the benefits of compliance and how to stay out of trouble. The compliance industry has evolved significantly in the last decade or so. Fox adds that right now, the industry is more data-driven and, “When you have data, you can actually improve business efficiency.” He continues to say that the backbone of compliance is internal controls, which are financial controls, but are not often called that. If you look at them from a compliance perspective and tweak them enough to have both controls, you can make enough headroom in making a company run more efficiently, leading to greater profitability.

Categories
Fraud Eats Strategy

Operationalizing Compliance

Today’s episode features special guest Tom Fox, founder of the Compliance Podcast Network and Author of The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program. Our discussion focuses on the guidance compliance officers can use as a roadmap when architecting their ethics and compliance programs and anti-bribery and corruption compliance programs.

>

Join us each week as we take a deep dive into the various forms of fraud across the world and discuss crime families, penny stock boiler rooms, international money launderers, narco-traffickers, oligarchs, dictators, warlords, kleptocrats and more.

Scott Moritz is a leading authority on white-collar crime, anti-corruption, and in the evaluation, design, remediation, implementation, and administration of corporate compliance programs, codes of conduct. He is also considered an authority in the establishment, training, and oversight of the investigative protocols carried out by financial intelligence, corporate security, and internal audit units.
 

Categories
This Week in FCPA

Episode 260 – the Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition


As Tom celebrates the release of The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition, he and Jay are back to take a look at this week’s stories top compliance and ethics stories which caught their interest on This Week in FCPA in the Trump Organization Indicted edition.
Stories

  1. The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition is released. Learn about it here. Purchase it here.
  2. Four ways to update you ABC compliance program right now. Ann-Maire Zell in the FCPA Blog.
  3. John Wood Group DPA with SFO. Tom has a 2-part series on the FCPA Compliance Report. Part 1-deplorable conduct and Part 2-lessons learned.
  4. Alex Cotoia takes a deep dive into the EU Whistleblower Directive in a 4-part series. On Compliance Crime and Corruption.
  5. Emerging trends in 3rd Party Risk Management. Jaclyn Jaeger in Compliance Week (sub req’d)
  6. Mengqi Sun interviews Sherron Watkins in the WSJ Risk and Compliance Journal.
  7. Anti-trust concerns at the Board level. Elizabeth Ising, Stephen Weissman, Cassandra Tillinghast and Chris Wilson in NYU Compliance and Enforcement Blog.
  8. How to avoid buying a FCPA issue. Valerie Charles, Jamen Tyler and Robert Johnston in CCI.
  9. Compliance on the inside v. outside. Amy Landry in CCI.
  10. Compliance officers are disciplinarians (at times). Dick Cassin in the FCPA Blog.

Podcasts and Events

  1. How does history inform compliance? What are the leadership lessons from ancient Greeks and Romans? Find out in this special 10 part podcast series on famous Greeks and Romans from Plutarch’s Lives this week on 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership, hosted by Richard Lummis and Tom Fox. In Episode 5, they mined Plutarch about the lives of and leadership lessons from the Greek Epaminondas and the Roman Scipio Africanus.
  2. A new month on The Compliance Life! In July I visit with Asha Palmer, CECO at Convercent. In Episode 1, from Claire Huxable to the DOJ.
  3. Tom premiers a new podcast, Greetings and Felicitations. In the inaugural episode, CPN fan fav Dr. Ben Locwin is back to discuss the current state of the Covid-19 pandemic and where we might be headed.
  4. Trekking Through Compliance Returns! Tom reviews all 79 episodes of Star Trek, the Original Series beginning June 1. Each day at 3 PM on the Compliance Podcast Network. This week’s offerings included The Apple, The Doomsday Machine, Catspaw, I, Mudd and Metamorphosis.
  5. On July 13, join K2 Integrity for its Virtual Compliance Conference on Environment, Social, and Governance Compliance Risks for Financial Institutions. Information and Registration here.
  6. Join Tom, Asha Palmer and Stephen Martin for a coming out webinar for The Compliance Handbook, 2nd We will focus on 3rd party risk management. Attendees will receive a special article and offer. Best of all, it’s at no charge. Details and registration here.

Tom Fox is the Voice of Compliance and can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Jay Rosen is Mr. Monitor and can be reached at jrosen@affiliatedmonitors.com.

Categories
Great Women in Compliance

Tom Fox on The Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition


Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
For those of you who do not know the origin of the Great Women in Compliance podcast, put simply, we are not sure if this podcast would have started without the support and guidance of Tom Fox.  He is known as the Compliance Evangelist and has been that and more to so many in our field.
We have wanted to include him as a guest on the podcast, and this turned out to be the perfect time as he is about to release an update of the Compliance Handbook, 2nd edition (LexisNexis) which pulls off the trick of being a practical how-to guide while also including nuanced analysis of the law and regulations.
Mary and Lisa are both a part of this special interview, where Tom discusses the handbook as well as his experience in building the Compliance Podcast Network and how he keeps up-to-date with so much going on in our space.  He also discusses what advice he would give to new compliance practitioners.
Listeners to this podcast can received PreSale discount of 25% is available for presale purchase. Use the code FOX25 for the presale discount and go here for more information and to order The Compliance Handbook 2nd edition. It  will be available in both print and eBook editions. It will be published in April 2021.
 
You can subscribe to the Great Women in Compliance podcast on any podcast player by searching for it and we welcome new subscribers to our podcast.
Lisa and Mary have extended the Great Women in Compliance brand to the book “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020) which can be found on Amazon and features valuable wisdom and advice from Great Women in Compliance across the world.
If you’ve already read the booked and liked it, will you help out other women to make the decision to leverage off the tips and advice given by rating the book and giving it a glowing review on Amazon?
As always we are so grateful for all of your support and if you have any feedback or suggestions for our 2021 line up, or would just like to reach out and say hello, we always welcome hearing from our listeners.
Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.