The Compliance Life 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 success 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. Over four episodes each month on The Compliance Life, I visit with one current or former CCO to explore their journey to the CCO chair. This month, we have our first Director of Trade Compliance, Matt Silverman, Director of Trade Compliance at VIAVI. We discuss Matt’s journey to the Director’s chair and look down the road at where trade compliance will be in 2025 and beyond.
After law school at Loyola, Silverman practiced, rather unhappily for four years as a personal injury and asbestos litigator in Chicago for a couple small defense firms. He then went back to school to get an LLM in international business law at Georgetown Law. It was this experience that drew him to trade compliance where during his LLM program I took temporary positions/externships in a variety of disparate positions including the US Senate, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the World Bank and the law firm of Baker Hostetler.
Tag: trade compliance
In this Episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I conclude a special two-part series with Matt Silverman on trade compliance. Matt leads the VIAVI Global Trade team and provides strategic guidance to management on international regulatory requirements – including customs, export controls, embargoes, sanctions and antiboycott laws – enabling compliant movement and market access for VIAVI’s products, software, technology and services. Highlights of this podcast include:
1. What are the key components of a best practices trade compliance program?
2. It seems to me that trade compliance is even more important coming out of Covid 19 and into our ‘new normal’.
3. What would you tell a young compliance professional about focusing on trade compliance?
4. Where do you see trade compliance down the road in 2025 and beyond?
5. Where does trade compliance fit into ESG?
Resources
Matt Silverman on LinkedIn
Articles
Navigating the Line Between US Export Controls and Anti-Discrimination Laws,
Export Compliance Manager, Issue 12, April 2021
Ensuring Export Compliance in Activity-Based Working Spaces, Home Offices,
International Trade Blog, March 3, 2021
Navigating Export Compliance, CEP Magazine, March 2021
What HR Needs to Know About Export Compliance and Deemed Exports, International Trade Blog, January 11, 2021
Championing Your Compliance Program, CEP Magazine, November 2020
In this Episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I begin a special two-part series with Matt Silverman on trade compliance. Matt leads the VIAVI Global Trade team and provides strategic guidance to management on international regulatory requirements – including customs, export controls, embargoes, sanctions and antiboycott laws – enabling compliant movement and market access for VIAVI’s products, software, technology and services. Highlights of this podcast include:
- What got Matt interested in trade compliance?
- What is trade compliance?
- Why has trade compliance become not only more challenging but more important in the corporate world?
- Under the prior administration, it seemed like new sanctions were announced almost daily. Has that pace of sanctions continued under the current Administration?
Join us next week for Part 2 where we dive into a best practices trade compliance program, trade compliance into 2025 and beyond and trade compliance and ESG.
Resources
Matt Silverman on LinkedIn
Articles by Matt Silverman
Build A Visitor Management Program That Ensures Export Compliance, International Trade Blog, July 7, 2021
Employee Behavior and Workplace Culture: Measuring Your Training’s Impact, Ethikos, July 2021
Export Compliance & Anti-Discrimination: Best Practices to Resolve Competing Interests,
PLI Chronicle: Insights and Perspectives for the Legal Community, June 2021
Considerations and Challenges in Developing Compliance Training, CEP Magazine, May 2021
What’s cooking in the Compliance Kitchen? Silvia Surman is back.
The European Commission published a report dated April 17, 2020 that details the impact that the corona virus is expected to have on EU trade. According to the Commission’s new release, the COVID-19 crisis will is anticipated to result in a decline of both EU exports (decline of 9.2%) and EU imports (8.8% decline) this year alone. The numbers are based on the estimated decline in GDP worldwide. The temporary shutdown of businesses and travel restrictions globally will combine to leave a decline in economic output, global trade, investment and general household spending. The Commission notes that “while there is a wealth of forecasts on GDP growth in 2020, there is a limited range of work done on trade projections for 2020, in particular for EU trade.”
You may have heard of the 1MDB scandal and the subsequent investigations and government protests that resulted in the country. Jho Lo appears to still be on the run, although he didreach a settlement with the US DOJ and Malaysia is seeing some return of the misappropriated funds. Recently, Malaysian Securities Commission issued an annual report, finding that only 59% of Malaysian listed companies have anti-corruption policies in place and even those, for the most part, needed to be beefed up. For more on this, and the Commission’s plans forward, see a news article here. If you are considering doing business with Malaysia, some official sources of information might be of assistance.
In this introductory episode, Compliance Kitchen host Silvia Surnam welcomes you to “See What’s Cooking” in the Compliance Kitchen. The Compliance Kitchen was launched after many moons of texts, calls, chats and coffee outings that went something like this:
- Hey, can my friend call you to see what you think about the Russia and Iran sanctions?
- Where would you find support for that export license requirement? Can I call you?
- Do you have a minute? This compliance lawyer told me that an Executive Order is a suggestion of what a law could be, not an actual law. Is that true?
- So if we are not a US company, we can trade with Cuba, right?
- What are secondary sanctions?
- Say, any chance you would know if facilitation payment was more specifically set (dollar amount, for example) in Mexican anti-corruption law?
- What’s a UBO?
- This GDPR thing, that’s just for Europe, right? And we are Safe Harbor certified, so it doesn’t even apply to us – can we chat?
- At a coffee shop one morning: So, what’s cooking in compliance today?
And so the Compliance Kitchen was born. It is here for those who want to “see what’s cooking” in the never-boring worlds of corporate compliance, white collar crime and global trade. We hope that our selection of topics will be of interest and that official resources will be easier to locate. We also hope that you will feel comfortable in the Compliance Kitchen and read on, finding it enjoyable.
