Why Isn’t Michael Cohen Getting a Cooperation Agreement? (Spoiler: He Probably Is) (Part One)

GRAND JURY TARGET

Much was made this week of the fact that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty without a written cooperation agreement.

He pleaded guilty to multiple federal offenses, including tax fraud, campaign finance violations and bank fraud. The guidelines range agreed to in the plea deal is around 4 to 6 years.

Now, it’s true that his plea agreement did not have a cooperation provision in it. In fact, it said

The parties agree that neither a downward nor an upward departure from the Stipulated Guidelines range set forth above is warranted. Accordingly, neither party will seek any departure or adjustment pursuant to the Guidelines that is not set forth herein.

Even though the plea agreement said that neither party would seek a downward departure (even for assistance), it’s still very possible that Mr. Cohen will get cooperation credit during the whole sentencing process.

Let’s explore how that could happen.

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Does an FCPA Violation Require a Quid Pro Quo? Further Developments in the JP Morgan “Sons & Daughters” Case

Excellent and succinct analysis.

GAB | The Global Anticorruption Blog

One of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases we’ve been paying relatively more attention to here on GAB is the investigation of JP Morgan’s hiring practices in Asia (mainly China), in connection to allegations that JP Morgan provided lucrative employment opportunities to the children of powerful Chinese officials–both in the government and at state-owned enterprises (SOEs)–in exchange for business. A couple weeks back the Wall Street Journal published a story about the case, indicating that the government and JP Morgan were likely to reach an agreement soon in which the firm would pay around $200 million to settle the allegations. (The WSJ story is behind a paywall, but Thomas Fox has a nice succinct summary of both of the case generally and of the recent developments reported by WSJ,)

I’ll admit that my first reaction, on seeing the WSJ report, was skepticism that we were actually on the…

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Archie Bunker, Batgirl and the International Fight Against Corruption

This week saw the death of two notables from the television industry, Bud Yorkin and Yvonne Craig. According to his Obituary in the New York Times (NYT), Yorkin rose up the television industry ranks to eventually team with Norman Lear to produce one of the true “pioneering, provocative and singularly successful satirical series” in the history of television, All In The Family, introducing one of the most recognizable characters in all of TV – Archie Bunker. When I say he began at the bottom end of the business: it literally was that, as he began repairing TVs in New York City bars. All In The Family not only broke ground by discussing taboo subjects it also became “the first TV series to top the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years.”

Yvonne Craig was known, according to her Obituary in the NYT, as the girl “who kept Gotham safe as Batgirl” whom she played in the 1960s TV series Batman. Craig was a classically trained ballerina who brought athleticism and “a scrappy girl-power element” to the series in its third and final season. However, I remember Craig as the green skinned slave girl in the “Whom The Gods Destroy” episode from the original Star Trek series. Her Obituary noted, “She performed a seductive, loose-limbed dance that seemed to nearly overwhelm William Shatner’s red-blooded Captain Kirk, while Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock pronounced it “mildly interesting.””

Interestingly both of these televisions stars inform today’s compliance issue. Yorkin for the way he and his partner Lear held up a mirror, through All In The Family, to address such issues as “racism, sexism, abortion, gay rights and the war in Vietnam, among other television taboos” and Craig, “who kept Gotham safe as Batgirl.” Of course I am referring to the devastating disaster that occurred last week in the Chinese city of Tianjin. A NYT article, entitled “Report Details Role of Political Connections in Tianjin Disaster”, reported that the death toll now stands at 114, with 674 injured and more than 17,000 homes damaged. An unknown number of persons are still missing.

Is anyone really surprised corruption was involved in the tragedy? Enforcement of anti-corruption laws, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the UK Bribery Act or even Chinese domestic anti-bribery laws, is not a game for corruption can kill. While most corruption leads to economic damage, there have been clear instances where corruption led to the loss of life. The 2013 massacre at the Narobi Westgate shopping mall was clearly a result of corruption in Kenya that allowed guns used in the attack to be illegally smuggled into the country through bribery.

Now it has been reported that corruption led to the disaster in Tianjin. The FCPA Blog, in a post entitled “Report: Tianjin warehouse owners used guanxi to land phony safety licenses”, wrote that “The owners of the warehouse in the port of Tianjin that exploded last week and killed more than 100 people obtained fraudulent safety licenses through their connections with fire and safety officials, China state media said.” The warehouse where the fire started and spread from was illegally holding certain lethal chemicals. The post also noted, “Ruihai International Logistics owned the warehouse. The main shareholders of the company are ex-Sinochem executive Yu Xuewei and Dong Shexuan, the son of a late police chief, VAO News reported.” The FCPA Blog went on to quote the VOA report for the following, “In an interview with the official Xinhua news agency, Dong and Yu admitted to using their connections, or guanxi, with local officials to obtain various fire safety, land, environmental and safety certifications.”

In addition to the illegally stored chemicals, it turns out there should not even have been a warehouse in that location in the first place. In another NYT article, entitled “Report Details Role of Political Connections in Tianjin Disaster”, Dan Levin reported the warehouse itself was not far enough back from the prescribed distance for residential housing. It seemed clear from the confession of the Mayor of Tianjin that he had been involved in the corruption when he stated, “I bear the unshirkable responsibility for this accident as head of the city.”

Another indicia of Chinese corruption had come into play as well. The executives of the company, which owned the warehouse and illegally stored chemicals, Ruihai, hid their ownership interest. The article reported they “had other people list their shares to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

In yet another NYT article, entitled “Fear of Toxic Air and Distrust of Government Follow Explosions in China” also by Dan Levin, it was noted “Later on Tuesday, China’s anticorruption agency announced on its website that Yang Dongliang, a former deputy mayor of Tianjin who became the head of the State Administration of Work Safety, was under investigation for “suspected violations of party discipline and the law,” a common euphemism for corruption. The Beijing Youth Daily reported, however, that Mr. Yang has been under investigation for a half-year, raising questions about why the case was announced now. Two other officials accused of taking bribes are also under investigation.”

The fallout from this tragedy continues. However, with such widespread corruption many Chinese feel they are not being told the truth and that their government is protecting corrupt officials. Levin said, “Public reflection on man-made tragedies is politically risky for the ruling Communist Party, according to David Bandurski, an editor of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. “The party leadership is very aware that questions of responsibility in a disaster like this can very quickly move to fundamental issues of power and legitimacy,” he said, explaining that in an authoritarian system, “the buck stops with you.” Mr. Bandurski noted that censors had struggled to control the Tianjin narrative because some Chinese journalists had pushed ahead with their own reporting. “This is a very messy story, and for Chinese media, messy means opportunity,” he said.”

The Petrobras scandal in Brazil is bringing into question the government of President Dilma, it could forebode the same in China. Corruption in all its forms is no laughing matter and enforcing anti-corruption laws is no game. While prosecuting companies engaging in bribery and corruption through the hiring of sons and daughters of government officials to retain or garner new business may seem quite a long way from the Westgate Mall massacre or the massive loss of life in Tianjin; they are clearly on a unidimensional continuum.

Just as Archie Bunker put a light up to many of the social ills of his time, the more light you can shine on corruption, the more you can root it out of the shadows. But do not forget to send in Batgirl and those fighting for justice against corruption as well.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

BNY Mellon and Lessons Learned In Hiring Family Members – Part II

In yesterday’s post I reviewed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action involving the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) around its hiring of sons and nephews of foreign governmental officials to obtain or retain business from certain foreign Sovereign Wealth Funds. I discussed the underlying facts and penalties assessed against BNY Mellon as laid out in the SEC Cease and Desist Order (the “Order”). Today I want to provide some guidance on what this enforcement action may mean for companies going forward when hiring the sons and daughters or close family relatives of foreign government officials.

The first thing to remember is there is nothing in the FCPA which prohibits the hiring of a son, daughter or close family member of a foreign government official. What the FCPA does make illegal is an action where a company “or any officer, director, employee, or agent acting on behalf of such issuer, in order to obtain or retain business, from corruptly giving or authorizing the giving of, anything of value to any foreign official for the purposes of influencing the official or inducing the official to act in violation of his or her lawful duties, or to secure any improper advantage, or to induce a foreign official to use his influence with a foreign governmental instrumentality to influence any act or decision of such government or instrumentality.” [citation omitted]

The actions of BNY Mellon were clearly designed to not simply curry favor with the foreign governmental officials involved but also to either grow the business or help to retain what the company already had in place with the un-named foreign Sovereign Wealth Fund. At this point most companies have a written FCPA compliance program in place; consisting of policies and procedures. Note, this does not mean that the compliance program is effective because for a compliance program to be effective, a company must actually be doing compliance. Many FCPA enforcement actions occur because an exception was granted to a policy or procedure and either the reason for granting the exception was inappropriate or there was no documentation as to why the exception was granted. In the case of BNY Mellon, it was the latter.

BNY Mellon offered high value, high prestige summer internship programs for “undergraduates as well as a separate summer program for postgraduates actively pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or similar degree. Admission to the BNY Mellon postgraduate internship program was highly competitive and characterized by stringent hiring standards.” The main purpose of these internships was to give BNY Mellon an opportunity to evaluate the interns as potential permanent hires to the company. There was a designated track for nomination to the internship program and internal company evaluation prior to offering candidates an intern position. In other words, there were policies and procedures around the process but BNY Mellon did not follow them.

Hiring Process

The first Red Flag, which BNY Mellon seemingly ignored in this entire process, was that each of the candidates were recommended to the firm by foreign governmental officials who held control of business relations between Sovereign Wealth Funds and the bank. Their requests that their close family relations be hired by BNY Mellon was contra to the banks own process of selecting candidates for its internship program from a exclusive group of universities and colleges in the US and UK. The Order noted, “Successful applicants had to achieve a minimum grade point average, and had to advance through multiple rounds of interviews in addition to having relevant prior work experience and a demonstrated affinity for and interest in financial services work.”

None of these indicia were present in the hiring of the foreign governmental official’s relatives at issue. There was no evidence the candidates met any of BNY Mellon’s own internal criteria for consideration to the internship program. Indeed, as the Order stated, “as recent graduates not enrolled in any degree program, the Interns did not meet the basic entrance standard for a BNY Mellon postgraduate internship.” Finally, to top it off, all three were hired sight unseen and “BNY Mellon decided to hire the Interns before even meeting or interviewing them.” 

The Internships

But BNY Mellon’s violative conduct did not stop by simply hiring the three close family relatives for its internship program. The three persons got benefits far more than simply a regular internship program. BNY Mellon designed special “Bespoke” internship programs for the three interns. As requested by their fathers and uncle, the three interns received “customized work experiences” which “were not regular undergraduate or graduate summer internships at all, but customized one-of-a-kind training programs. The internships were valuable work experience, and the requesting officials derived significant personal value in being able to confer this benefit on their family members.”

The internships were abnormally long, lasting six months, which was twice the normal length. Additionally they were “rotational in nature, meaning that Interns A, B and C had the opportunity to work in a number of different BNY Mellon business units, enhancing the value of the work experience beyond that normally provided to BNY Mellon interns.”

The Costs

In addition to the exceptions granted in the hiring process and the internships themselves, BNY Mellon also paid out money and non-monetary benefits in a manner different to others in the internship program. The Order stated, “BNY Mellon determined, because Interns A and B had already graduated from college, that Interns A and B should be paid above the normal salary scale for BNY Mellon undergraduate interns but below the scale for postgraduate interns. Intern C was unpaid. BNY Mellon also coordinated obtaining visas for all three of the Interns so that they could travel from the Middle East to work in the countries in which they were placed. BNY Mellon paid the legal fees and filing costs related to the visas. As the BNY Mellon Asset Management employee responsible for arranging two of the three internships wrote in a contemporaneous e-mail, the internships constituted an “expensive favor” for the requesting foreign official.” Indeed the Order cited to an email from one BNY Mellon employee who wrote, “I am working on an expensive ‘favor’ for [Official X] – an internship for his son and cousin (don’t mention to him as this is not official).” Further, BNY Mellon knew the request and accommodation was unethical, if not illegal, as the same employee wrote in another email, ““[W]e have to be careful about this. This is more of a personal request . . . [Official X] doesn’t want

[the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund] to know about it.” The same employee later directed his administrative assistant to refrain from sending email correspondence concerning Official X’s internship request “because it was a personal favor.”

Lessons Learned Going Forward

I must emphasize once again that there is nothing illegal around the hiring of a close family member of a foreign governmental official. It does however present a higher risk for indicia of bribery and corruption and violation of the FCPA. A higher FCPA risk means you need to evaluate that risk more closely and manage that risk accordingly.

The obvious starting point for any hiring of a close family member of a foreign governmental official is whether the candidate is qualified for the position. If they are not qualified it is ‘Full Stop’ at that point. In the case of BNY Mellon there was no evidence any of the candidates had the academic background, the academic credentials, leadership traits or intangible skills to meet the bank’s normal internship hiring criteria. As with any other anomaly granted in a company’s normal process, there must be a documented reason for the exception, review by appropriate authority of the exception and documentation as to why the exception was granted. None of these steps were present in the BNY Mellon matter. Put another way, if you are hiring a family member or close relative of a foreign government official for any reason other than merit, it had better be a darn good one and well-documented as to your decision-making calculus with appropriate senior management oversight.

But your risk management does not stop simply with the hiring process. If the foreign governmental official is the person who made the request for the hiring of the family member, this is a Red Flag not to be overlooked. Your analysis needs to be on the role of that foreign governmental official in awarding new business to your company or in retaining old business. If the foreign governmental official has direct or even strong indirect control over such business relation, this may present such a direct conflict of interest, this may be a risk that you cannot manage. A good rule of thumb here is whether there is full transparency in the hiring with the foreign government involved with your company. In the case of BNY Mellon, they did not want anyone in the Sovereign Wealth Fund to know BNY Mellon had hired the son or nephew. That is a clear sign transparency is lacking and someone, somewhere is engaging in unethical conduct, if not breaking the law.

Finally, if you do decide to move forward and hire the close family member, you need to assign that new hire to work not associated with the business relationship between your company and the foreign government involved. Just as in the lifecycle of third party management, managing the relationship after a contract is inked is in many ways the most critical element; the same is true in the employment relationship involving close family members of foreign government officials.

Ultimately, you need to have internal controls to ensure effective compliance going forward. You cannot have customer relationship managers making the calls on hiring which over-ride the Human Resources (HR) procedures. There must be not only HR review but also mechanisms to flag for compliance review such hires. Lastly, there needs to be sufficient senior management oversight because this is such a high-risk proposition.

I hope you have enjoyed and found this two-part series on the BNY Mellon FCPA enforcement action and the lessons learned from it useful. The SEC Order provides a clear road map to the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), compliance practitioner, HR professional or anyone else who reads it on the steps you should take in the hiring of a close family member of a foreign government official with which you are doing business. It may take some additional effort than simply having your business unit employees make the call on who to award prestigious internships to in order to obtain or retain business but in the long run you will have a better run company for doing so. FCPA enforcement is not a game and by doing compliance will make your company a more accurtely operated  entity.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

BNY Mellon Settles First Sons and Daughters (and Nephews) FCPA Hiring Matter – Part I

Yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a resolution with Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This was the first enforcement action around the now infamous Princesslings and Princelings investigations where US companies hired the sons and daughters of foreign government officials to curry favor and obtain or retain business.

While JPMorgan Chase has garnered the most attention around this issue, probably because of its notorious spreadsheet tracking of sons and daughters hires to develop business in China, there are multiple US companies under scrutiny for similar conduct. The FCPA Blog has reported that Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and UBS are all under investigation by the SEC for their hiring practices around the sons and daughters of foreign government officials. BNY Mellon has the honor of being the first company to reach resolution on this issue.

This is an important issue for many companies going forward and since this is the initial enforcement action on this issue, I am going to take a deep dive into the matter over the next couple of days. Today, I will discuss the facts of the case and tomorrow I will discuss not only the lessons to be learned from this FCPA enforcement action but also how the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) or compliance practitioner can use those facts to graft a hiring program around the sons and daughters of foreign government officials which will not violate the FCPA.

In its Press Release, the SEC noted, “The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that BNY Mellon has agreed to pay $14.8 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by providing valuable student internships to family members of foreign government officials affiliated with a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.” Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division, was quoted in the Press Release as stating, “The FCPA prohibits companies from improperly influencing foreign officials with ‘anything of value,’ and therefore cash payments, gifts, internships, or anything else used in corrupt attempts to win business can expose companies to an SEC enforcement action. BNY Mellon deserved significant sanction for providing valuable student internships to family members of foreign officials to influence their actions.” Kara Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit, said, “Financial services providers face unique corruption risks when seeking to win business in international markets, and we will continue to scrutinize industries that have not been vigilant about complying with the FCPA.”

The Cease and Desist Order (Order) entered found that BNY Mellon violated the anti-bribery and internal controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  BNY Mellon, “Without admitting or denying the findings, the company agreed to pay $8.3 million in disgorgement, $1.5 million in prejudgment interest, and a $5 million penalty. The SEC considered the company’s remedial acts and its cooperation with the investigation when determining a settlement.”

The underlying facts and BNY Mellon’s conduct as laid out in the Order provide some clear guidance for the CCO or compliance practitioner regarding what will be a violation of the FCPA in terms of hiring sons, daughters and close family relatives going forward. It should be noted that two of the hires were sons of foreign governmental officials and one was a nephew. However, the first important lesson under this enforcement action is around the parties involved. Although not identified by country, the foreign governmental entity involved was a Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. If there was any question as to whether foreign sovereign wealth funds were covered under the FCPA, that answer is now clear, they are covered. All corporate actions should be cloaked with this knowledge going forward.

The Order also specified how the hiring of the relatives led directly to BNY Mellon obtaining and retaining business. One foreign government official, (Official X), “made a personal and discreet request that BNY Mellon provide internships to two of his relatives: his son, Intern A, and nephew, Intern B. As a Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund department head, Official X had authority over allocations of new assets to existing managers such as the Boutique, and was viewed within BNY Mellon as a “key decision maker” at the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund. Official X later persistently inquired of BNY Mellon employees concerning the status of his internship request, asking whether and when BNY Mellon would deliver the internships. At one point, Official X said to his primary contact at BNY Mellon that the request represented an “opportunity” for BNY Mellon, and that the official could secure internships for his family members from a competitor of BNY Mellon if it did not satisfy his personal request.”

There were clear statements by the BNY Mellon official involved that hiring this son and nephew were being done to obtain or retain business. As reported in the Order:

• BNY Mellon was “not in a position to reject the request from a commercial point of view” even though it was a “personal request” from Official X. The employee stated: “by not allowing the internships to take place, we potentially jeopardize our mandate with [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund].”
• Another employee was quoted as saying, ““I want more money for this. I expect more for this. . . . We’re doing [Official X] a favor.”
• Yet another employee was quoted as saying, “I am working on an expensive ‘favor’ for [Official X] – an internship for his son and cousin (don’t mention to him as this is not official).”
• Finally, to demonstrate the nefarious nature of the arrangement and lack of transparency in the entire process, this final BNY Mellon employee said, ““[W]e have to be careful about this. This is more of a personal request . . . [Official X] doesn’t want [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund] to know about it.” The same employee later directed his administrative assistant to refrain from sending email correspondence concerning Official X’s internship request “because it was a personal favor.”

The second foreign government official, (Official Y), “asked through a subordinate European Office employee that BNY Mellon provide an internship to the official’s son, Intern C. As a senior official at the European Office, Official Y had authority to make decisions directly impacting BNY Mellon’s business. Internal BNY Mellon documents reflected Official Y’s importance in this regard, stating that Official Y was “crucial to both retaining and gaining new business” for BNY Mellon. One or more European Office employees acting on Official Y’s behalf later inquired repeatedly about the status and details of the internship, including during discussions of the transfer of European Office assets to BNY Mellon. At the time of Official Y’s initial request, a number of recent client service issues had threatened to weaken the relationship between BNY Mellon and the European Office.”

When it came to hiring Official Y’s son there were some equally damning communications at BNY Mellon that were featured in the Order.

• The BNY Mellon sovereign wealth fund relationship manager said, “that granting Official Y’s request was likely to “influence any future decisions taken within [the Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund].”
• The same person also worried aloud that if BNY Mellon did not hire the son, it “might well lose market share to a competitor as a result.”
• He went on to write ““Its [sic] silly things like this that help influence who ends up with more assets / retaining dominant position.”
• Finally, he noted that to accede to Official Y’s request was the “only way” to increase business share.

Added to all of this was that none of the three individuals met the BNY Mellon requirements for its internship program; they met neither the academic or professional requirement to obtain an internship. BNY Mellon not only waived its own hiring requirements, it did not even go through the pretense of meeting with them or interviewing them. Finally, these three individuals were provided with “bespoke internships were rotational in nature, meaning that Interns A, B and C had the opportunity to work in a number of different BNY Mellon business units, enhancing the value of the work experience beyond that normally provided to BNY Mellon interns.”

The penalty was also interesting. As set out in the order BNY Mellon agreed to the following penalty amount: “disgorgement of $8,300,000, prejudgment interest of $1,500,000 and a civil money penalty in the amount of $5,000,000, for a total payment of $14,800,000.” The SEC noted the cooperation efforts of the bank in stating, “Respondent acknowledges that the Commission is not imposing a civil penalty in excess of $5,000,000 based upon its cooperation in a Commission investigation.” Further, BNY Mellon engaged in extensive remediation. The Order stated, “Prior to the investigation by the Commission of the Interns, BNY Mellon had begun a process of enhancing its anti-corruption compliance program including: making changes to the Anti-Corruption Policy to explicitly address the hiring of government officials’ relatives; requiring that every application for a full-time hire or an internship be routed through a centralized HR application process; enhancing its Code of Conduct to require that every year each employee certifies that he or she is not responsible for hiring through a non-centralized channel; and requiring as part of a centralized application process that each applicant indicate whether she or a close personal associate is or has recently been a government official, and, if so, additional review by BNY Mellon’s anti-corruption office is mandated.”

Tomorrow I will look at lessons learned for the CCO and compliance practitioner and how you can avoid the missteps of BNY Mellon in your hiring program going forward.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

Georgia On My Mind – How Does Compliance Enhance Shareholder Value?

Can you get a sense of place from listening to a song? In an article in the Financial Times (FT), entitled “The Life of a Song – Georgia On My Mind”, Mike Hobart wrote that when you “combine Stuart Gorrell’s lyrics with Hoagy Carmichael’s music… the sense of place becomes palpable.” While that may be true, the piece attributed to Frank Trumbauer who said, “Nobody ever lost money writing songs about the South”. The song did not become the well-known standard it is today until Ray Charles recorded it in 1960, some 30 years after Carmichael wrote it. Hobart believes that the song works so well “not the least because ‘Georgia On My Mind’ is a brilliant piece of imaginative fiction that captures the yearnings of a homesick soul. That fact and fantasy are so out of step only adds to the pathos.”

That ultimate line from Hobart’s piece struck me around an issue that I have thought about for some time. How many Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) and compliance practitioners out there have faced the following question from the General Counsel (GC), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) What does it do to enhance shareholder value? This is the question that is posed when senior management wants to deny resources to or even cut back the compliance function. At best the question is disingenuous and at worst it is simply a dodge by someone wanting to denude a corporate compliance function for their own nefarious reasons.

Michael Skapinker raised this second point, in another FT article entitled “Shareholder value is a cover for over-mighty chief executives”. Skapinker further opines that this question also presages an inquiry into whether CCOs “are using the cover of shareholder primacy to put themselves first?” While he also condemned the disparity in the growth of senior executives salaries and true shareholder value, Skapinker worries about the lack of accountability of CCOs and how their actions can damage a company’s reputation.

So how do you respond to this query? I think there is an answer with which you can always respond when faced with a clearly hostile CEO or other senior manager. It is the following. A best practices anti-corruption compliance program, whether based on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), UK Bribery Act or other anti-bribery law always enhances shareholder value. The reason is quite simple. It is all about tightening up the internal controls to prevent bribery and corruption.

However the part that such CEOs or other senior management may not understand is that FCPA internal controls are largely financial controls. Such controls are in place not only to comply with laws but also to provide internal oversight on how money flows out from an organization. The better the internal financial controls the better run a company will be in both the short and long term.

Most readers are familiar with Ethisphere’s annual designation of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. Many commentators deride this list because many of the companies on the list have gone through a FCPA investigation or enforcement action. Even with that factor, one of the things that Ethisphere touts about this list is that the companies on it routinely outperform the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Index in annual performance. I thought about this seeming anomaly for a long time, wondering how ethical companies could be in the midst of FCPA investigations and be on a most ethical list.

The reason these companies are on the list is that they have better financial controls and by having better financial controls, these companies are more generally better run. Think about financial controls around employee expense reimbursement as an example. These are in place to satisfy Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules to demonstrate the business purpose of employee travel, entertainment of customers, hospitality for potential customers and similar business expenses. Now consider this IRS requirement overlaid with a FCPA compliance requirement. Not only do you need to record the foreign government officials (or not) that you entertain, you need to document the expense incurred and the business purpose. If the expenses were predetermined to be over the amount set in your compliance policy, you may require compliance department pre-approval. When an employee submits an expense reimbursement form, there is usually a signature or self-attestation required. Then the employee’s supervisor, and perhaps one level above, must approve the reimbursement request before it even gets to Accounts Payable (AP) for a financial and procedure focused review.

All of these steps are financial controls yet they operate as internal compliance controls as well. If the controls are enforced the compliance function would have a searchable database to test employee expense reimbursement requests to see if any anomalies appear which should be set aside for further investigation. Imagine how GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) might have fared if it had properly assessed its Chinese employee reimbursement requests to determine if the employees had actually put on the events for which they claimed reimbursement.

The same financial control analogy is true for the other key steps in any best practices compliance program. Management must communicate the message regarding doing business in compliance down to the troops. This message should be formalized in policies and procedures to set expectations of behavior. Then there should training on these educations and a person or function sufficiently resourced to run it. Next there should be incentives to do business in compliance and sanctions for those who fail to meet the set expectations and an appropriate reporting mechanism for internal reporting of compliance violations. Any best practices FCPA compliance program would also have a risk assessment, management of third parties and a mergers and acquisition (M&A) component. Finally, all of these concepts should be memorialized through internal controls that are designed, implemented and tested for effectiveness.

So the next time one of those senior management types asks you what the compliance function does or even what an expenditure that you want to incur will do to increase shareholder value, you can not only point him (or her) to the Ethisphere Most Ethical Company list but you can dive down to the specific level of your company and point directly to one of the above concepts around internal controls, which are really financial controls, to make your company not only run more efficiently but also provide appropriate levels of oversight.

So just as Hoagy Carmichael may indeed have written Georgia On My Mind because no one “ever lost money writing songs about the South”; no company was worse run because it had effective internal controls. Quite the contrary, the more effective your compliance controls are the better run your company will be and that will most certainly enhance shareholder value.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

OIG Compliance Guidance for Health Care Governing Boards

On the front page of the Saturday New York Times (NYT) was an obituary for Edward Thomas, who joined the Houston Police Department (HPD) in 1948 and finally retired in 2011 at the age of 90. As reported in the article, entitled “Edward Thomas, Policing Pioneer Who Wore a Burden Stoically, Dies at 95”, when Thomas joined the HPD, “he could not report for work through the front door. He could not drive a squad car, eat in the department cafeteria or arrest a white suspect. Walking his beat, he was once disciplined for talking to a white meter maid.” The reason was that Thomas was the first African-America to don a uniform for the HPD. Yet through stoic service and professional leadership, Thomas became the longest serving Houston police officer and had the HPD Police headquarters renamed in his honor earlier this year.

I thought about how Thomas led the HPD to the modern era in the area of race relations in the context of a report, issued in April, by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Department of Health and Human Resources, entitled “Practical Guidance for Health Care Governing Boards on Compliance Oversight” (the OIG Guidance). Through this paper, the OIG provided compliance practitioners and health care company Board of Directors its views on the proper role of a Board in overseeing a corporate compliance function.

As an introduction, the OIG Guidance states that a Board must act in good faith around its obligations regarding compliance. This means that there must be both a corporation information and reporting system and that such reporting mechanisms provide appropriate information to a Board. It stated, “The existence of a corporate reporting system is a key compliance program element, which not only keeps the Board informed of the activities of the organization, but also enables an organization to evaluate and respond to issues of potentially illegal or otherwise inappropriate activity.” The OIG Guidance sets out four areas of Board oversight and review of a compliance function; “(1) roles of, and relationships between, the organization’s audit, compliance, and legal departments; (2) mechanism and process for issue-reporting within an organization; (3) approach to identifying regulatory risk; and (4) methods of encouraging enterprise-wide accountability for achievement of compliance goals and objectives.”

While noting that a corporate compliance function should promote the prevention, detection and remediation of compliance violations, the OIG Guidance goes on to state that an organization’s Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) “should neither be counsel for the provider, nor be subordinate in function or position to counsel or the legal department, in any manner.” Rather the Board must ensure the CCO and compliance function have resources to fulfill their assigned role within an organization and access to the Board. The Board should “evaluate and discuss how management works together to address risk, including the role of each in:

1. identifying compliance risks,
2. investigating compliance risks and avoiding duplication of effort,
3. identifying and implementing appropriate corrective actions and decision-making, and
4. communicating between the various functions throughout the process.”

A key component of Board oversight is through the flow of information. The OIG Guidance says, “The Board should set and enforce expectations for receiving particular types of compliance-related information from various members of management. The Board should receive regular reports regarding the organization’s risk mitigation and compliance efforts—separately and independently”. These reports can come to the Board via a variety of reporting mechanisms; regular Board meetings, special Executive Sessions where the Board meets with the CCO or compliance leadership outside of the presence of senior management and ad hoc communications from the CCO. All of these help create a “continuous expectation of open dialogue” which is paramount for proper Board oversight. Of course, if a serious compliance issue arises, it needs to be communicated directly, and in a timely manner, to the Board.

But in addition to setting the expectations for the flows of information, a Board must also set expectations for holding senior management accountable for areas such as compliance. This can be through the assessment of “individual, department, or facility-level performance or consistency in executing the compliance program” and using this information to payout or withhold discretionary based bonuses “based upon compliance and quality outcomes.” The OIG Guidance also notes, “Some companies have made participation in annual incentive programs contingent on satisfactorily meeting annual compliance goals. Others have instituted employee and executive compensation claw-back/recoupment provisions if compliance metrics are not met.” However the key component is that “Through a system of defined compliance goals and objectives against which performance may be measured and incentivized, organizations can effectively communicate the message that everyone is ultimately responsible for compliance.”

A Board also needs to have regular reports on the risks that any organization may face. This means keeping abreast of “relevant and emerging regulatory risks, the role and functioning of an organization’s compliance program in the face of those risks and the flow and elevation of reporting of potential issues and problems to senior management.” The OIG Guidance speaks to technological solutions when it says, “Some Boards use tools such as dashboards—containing key financial, operational and compliance indicators to assess risk, performance against budgets, strategic plans, policies and procedures, or other goals and objectives—in order to strike a balance between too much and too little information. For instance, Board quality committees can work with management to create the content of the dashboards with a goal of identifying and responding to risks and improving quality of care.”

Moreover, a Board should also mandate that the company’s compliance function have the proper tools in place to facilitate compliance reporting internally. It states, “Boards should also consider establishing a risk-based reporting system, in which those responsible for the compliance function provide reports to the Board when certain risk-based criteria are met. The Board should be assured that there are mechanisms in place to ensure timely reporting of suspected violations and to evaluate and implement remedial measures. These tools may also be used to track and identify trends in organizational performance against corrective action plans developed in response to compliance concerns.”

Ultimately a Board should drive home of the message of compliance as “a way of life” so that it permeates into the DNA of a health care organization. For if a Board can help drive compliance into the fabric of an organization, it will have done more than simply fulfill its legal obligations starting in the Caremark decision and going forward. The Board will have helped to make the entire organization more compliance-centric and when a Board can help to facilitate such a change in attitudes, it will have moved the organization several steps down the road of doing business in compliance with relevant laws and issues.

The OIG Guidance is an excellent review for not only compliance professionals and others in the health care industry but a good primer for Boards around their own duties under a best practices compliance program. The US Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program, the “OIG voluntary compliance program guidance documents, and OIG Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIAs) can be used as baseline assessment tools for Boards and management in determining what specific functions may be necessary to meet the requirements of an effective compliance program. The Guidelines “offer incentives to organizations to reduce and ultimately eliminate criminal conduct by providing a structural foundation from which an organization may self-police its own conduct through an effective compliance and ethics program.” The compliance program guidance documents were developed by OIG to encourage the development and use of internal controls to monitor adherence to applicable statutes, regulations, and program requirements.”

It is a document well worth your consideration.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

The BHP Case and Enforcement of The FCPA’s Internal Controls Provision

Ed. Note-today we have a guest post from Jean-Michel Ferat ,CPA, CFF is a Managing Director in the Washington D.C office of the Claro Group around his views on the BHP Billiton enforcement action. 

Much has been made in the last few months of the SEC’s seemingly aggressive stance in the BHP Billiton case. Many FCPA practitioners have taken the view that the SEC likely over-reached and set a wobbly precedent in extracting a $25 million civil settlement from BHP for its alleged internal control failure relating to the identification of hospitality payments to government officials that could potentially have been subject to some quid pro quo arrangement.

This appears to be a standout case for the SEC, even when compared to the 2012 Oracle case. In Oracle, the SEC had at least the existence of an off-the-books slush fund which on its surface appeared to have been set up for nefarious purposes. In most if not all SEC enforcement actions in the last 5 years, it would appear that internal controls violations were coupled with a books and records violation: in other words shady accounting. With BHP, the SEC had a company that identified a specific corruption risk, established a control to mitigate that risk but failed to execute it adequately. No off-the-books slush fund, no fake invoices, no fictitious vendors, no circuitous payments to government officials….. In other words: no shady accounting.

Accounting Controls vs. Compliance Controls

The BHP case is important for another reason. It helps to illustrate a thorn in the side of most organizations when it comes to establishing and documenting a comprehensive control structure: the distinction between accounting controls and compliance controls. I won’t argue here whether a literal interpretation of the law should restrict our regulators and law enforcement to violations of accounting controls or whether it extends to other operational controls – e.g. compliance controls – as well. What I will argue is that the distinction between accounting controls and compliance controls is not purely semantic but one with practical implementation, enforcement and reporting differences within most organizations.

When one of thinks of accounting controls in the context of corruption risk, one thinks of controls over accounts payable, petty cash, vendor set-up, disbursements and the like. In essence, these are controls that address whether cash out the door is going to its intended recipient and whether it is properly accounted for in the company’s books and records. These types of controls over financial reporting have received persistent scrutiny under SOX 404 and are typically “owned” by a company’s finance function (e.g. accounting manager, controller, CFO). Conversely, compliance controls are ones that do not necessarily impact a company’s financial reporting process but are meant to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. In the case of the FCPA, such controls might include mandatory FCPA training for employees, audit rights in third party contracts, and due diligence surrounding third party representatives. These controls are not usually “owned” by the finance function but are typically fall to the legal department or CCO. This division of labor makes sense for most organizations but it has the often-times negative effect of creating control “silos” where neither finance nor legal has a complete picture of FCPA risk mitigation.  The primary mechanism for countering this silo effect is (1) implementing an enterprise wide risk management process (2) mapping those risks to the detailed internal controls (both accounting and compliance) designed to mitigate and (3) disseminating this information to upper management across the entire organization.

The Risk Management Process and Linking Controls to Identified Risks

A company’s Enterprise Risk Management Process should be used to identify perceived risks to the organization and put in place a risk mitigation plan. In most company’s though, the mitigation plan is often kept at a very high level and rarely includes a deep dive into the detailed accounting and compliance controls currently in place or that must be implemented to adequately mitigate risk. In the case of FCPA risk, we often see companies undertaking corruption risk assessments and addressing internal controls at a very high level, but similarly, we rarely see such risk assessments taking a deep dive into the specific controls in place to manage corruption risk.

In the case of BHP, employees actively identified a new corruption risk and sought to mitigate it. Where it looks to have failed was by not integrating the newly identified risk into its overall risk management process and ensuring that the newly established control was adequate to mitigate the risk. Had BHP included the identified risk into its overall risk management process, it likely would have benefited from:

1. visibility of the perceived risk by various parts of the organization including Finance, Legal, Operations and members of the Risk Committee of the Board, if one existed;
2. A clear determination of who within the organization was responsible for mitigating the risk;
3. A chance for internal audit or another group within the organization to evaluate whether the established controls were sufficient and operating effectively.

Linking detailed internal controls to identified risks is a laborious task, in particular in decentralized organizations with varying types of internal controls in different geographic locations and/or business segments. The BHP case and newly established COSO guidelines would suggest however that organizations should seriously consider performing this task. FCPA scholars will wait to see whether the SEC’s position on BHP is part of an emerging pattern of internal controls enforcement or a one off anomaly. Regardless, public issuers should take heed and look to shoring up their risk management and internal control processes before the regulators come knocking.

Editors Note-a reader noted the line “Most notable in this case is the fact that the SEC did not charge BHP with either a books and records violation or an anti-bribery violation, but an internal controls violation alone,” is incorrect. BHP was charged with a Books and Records violation of the FCPA. This line has been removed.

Jean-Michel Ferat, CPA, CFF is a Managing Director in the Washington D.C office of the Claro Group and has over eighteen years of experience in the specialized fields of forensic accounting and fraud detection. He has applied his skills in a variety of cases involving financial statement fraud, high-level corruption, terrorist financing, collusive bidding rings, money laundering, embezzlement, asset misappropriation. HE has undertaken dozens of corruption investigations around the globe including a lead role in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme investigation. He can be reached at jmferat@theclarogroup.com.

Cymbeline – Doing Virtue and FCPA Compliance

Commentators still level the hue and cry that it is somehow the fault of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that companies continue to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Things would improve if only the DOJ and SEC would (1) prosecute companies more aggressively; (2) prosecute companies less aggressively; (3) make an example of ‘rogue’ employees who violate their corporate overseers pronouncements not to violate the law; (4) prosecute more corporate executives to ‘send a message’; (5) amend and clarify the FCPA because the concept of do not pay bribes is somehow too complicated for mere mortals to understand; (6) implement a compliance defense because apparently the DOJ does not consider that enough in any decision to prosecute; and/or (7) as The Donald desires, simply do away with the FCPA to restore the ability to pay a fair price for fair corruption.

I thought about all of these varied and contradictory reasons when considering one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic plays, Cymbeline. In an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) entitled “The Long, Painful Drama of Self-Knowledge”, Stephen Smith considered the character Posthumus who was thought of as virtuous yet, through the crush of the plot, has his virtuous image shattered. Smith poses the question of “Why is Posthumus such a poor leader of himself, and a danger to others?” He answers his own question by saying, “The play suggests that his lack of self-knowledge, along with the flattery of his culture, make him overconfident.” In other words, he was human.

I thought about this analysis in the context of the recent accounting and financial scandal that engulfed the Toshiba Corporation in Japan. For those who did not follow the news, Toshiba announced last month that it had overstated its profits from 2008-2014 by over $1 billion dollars. This was in the face of the company having been publicly recognized for its good governance standards and practices. In an article in the Financial Times (FT), entitled “Japan Inc left shaken by Toshiba scandal”, Kana Inagaki reported, “On paper, it had a structure that gave its external directors the authority to many top executives and an auditing committee to monitor the behaviour of the company’s leaders. It was lauded for its efforts. In 2013, the group was ranked ninth out of 120 publicly traded Japanese companies with good governance practices in a list compiled by the “Japan Corporate Governance Network.””

But it was all a sham as it turned out that chairman of the audit committee was in on the fraud in addition to a plethora of top executives. Kota Ezawa, an analyst at Citigroup was quoted in the piece that “Toshiba was lauded as the frontrunner in governance efforts but that was a misunderstanding. Its governance structure looked good but the execution was not.” Ezawa further stated, “We need to make sure that companies understand that having structures is not enough.” So even a company with $52bn in annual sales must have more than a paper program.

For those who want to point to some defect in the Japanese corporate character, reminding us of the Olympus scandal from 2011, where successive corporate executives covered up long running accounting fraud, Andrew Hill, also writing for the FT in an article entitled “The universal dangers shown by Toshiba’s failings”, says not to point that self-righteous finger quite so quickly. He reminds readers of WorldCom from earlier this century. Being from Houston, I would remind readers of Enron and its accounting fraud as well. Hill cites to the work of Professor Michael Jones to identify four main types of accounting fraud, (1) increasing income, (2) decreasing expenses, (3) increasing assets, and (4) decreasing liabilities. Hill further notes that one common failing in all of these examples is the failure of internal controls. A second key failing is the “Unwillingness to challenge authority, a trait attributed to employees at Toshiba and Olympus — and often given an “only in Japan” spin — is a recurring problem everywhere, from Royal Bank of Scotland under Fred Goodwin to Fifa under Sepp Blatter.”

Hill’s explanation of the how and why of these accounting scandals is as age old as the time of Cymbaline. He wrote, “The most important lesson from Toshiba is about the malign impact of top-down pressure to meet unrealistic targets. Toshiba’s ex-chief executive denies having given direct instructions to staff to inflate profits. But the investigating panel said he told executives to “use every possible measure to achieve profitability” and added that Toshiba’s corporate culture did “not allow employees to go against the will of their superiors”.”

The lessons that Hill finds in the Toshiba accounting scandal are equally applicable to FCPA compliance and enforcement. It is not the DOJ or SEC’s “fault” when companies do not comply with the FCPA. It is up to the companies to which the law applies to comply with it. Make no mistake; it is quite simple not to pay bribes. One only has to wake up and say “I am not paying a bribe today, no matter what the economic benefit is to me”. Yet for a company, it is not easy because you have to not only put the appropriate controls in place, but you have to do compliance by ensuring these controls are executed upon. That was the failing of Toshiba, it had the controls in place but it did not execute on them.

I think this speaks directly as to why FCPA violations continue to occur and be prosecuted. Hill ended his piece by noting, “When aggressive targets, irresistible management pressure and weak controls coincide, misconduct can spread quickly. Rival companies see the inflated numbers and strain to match them. To suggest such weaknesses are confined to one corporate or national culture is a first step into dangerous complacency.” As long as humans are involved with corporations and there are incentives in place for more and greater sales, you will always have the motivation to cut corners and pay bribes. That impulse can be brought on by a bump in salary, a nice bonus, a promotion or sometimes simply keeping your job. That is why a compliance program must be put in place and those controls must be effective.

In Cymbeline the protagonist Posthumus learns that one key component of virtue is prudence. Near the end of his article on Shakespeare’s play Smith writes, “In his story, we glimpse one goal of Shakespearean drama: to help forge just such a character – an integrated human person capable of leading himself and others to peace, with the help of virtue.” For FCPA compliance, as long as there are incentives in place to make money, there will be people who cut corners by paying bribes. Yet companies can temper this by putting an effective compliance program in place and actually doing compliance. Much like Posthumus learns in Cymbeline it is one’s actions which lead to being virtuous; for a company, it is doing compliance that leads to it being called ethical.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of the author. The author is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, legal advice, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such legal advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified legal advisor. The author, his affiliates, and related entities shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person or entity that relies on this publication. The Author gives his permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author. The author can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

© Thomas R. Fox, 2015

Why Is It So Hard to Hire People in Compliance?

Ed. Note-I recently asked Maurice Gilbert, founder and CEO of Conselium Executive Search if he would share some thoughts as to why and how a company should use an executive search firm when recruiting a C-Suite level executive, specifically a Chief Compliance Officer. Maurice graciously responded with the below post on how his company can assist in such a search and more importantly why companies should use a professional search firm in such situations. 

 

As managing partner of an executive search firm, I’m often asked how the sluggish economy affects our business.  Truth?  Not at all.  We place compliance officers, and our business is booming.

The demand for top-notch compliance pros is high, and the supply low. Hunting heads takes time, talent and chutzpah.  If it were easy, companies wouldn’t need us.

Here’s an example of a typical search:

The phone rings.  It’s the senior vice president of HR at a prominent medical device company.  Would we entertain a search for an EVP Chief Compliance Officer?

“Certainly,” I tell her. “When do you need to have this job filled?”

“Yesterday.”

She goes on to explain they posted the job on their website five months ago and also added it to a few major online job boards.  When responses were sluggish, their internal recruiter joined the hunt (more on this later.) She had reviewed 17 CV’s before calling me – not one of which warranted an interview.

Our search began by calling and emailing compliance officers in our (vast) network.  We’ve spent a decade compiling contact info and building relationships with Compliance Officers.

Next step: Screening candidates.  We typically screen 100 professionals for every qualified candidate we present to a client.  In this case, we identified 5 candidates – so you can do the math there.  We screened over 500 applicants in this stage of the process.

One candidate in particular stood out.  So we called and left a message.  Then we called again.  Then we left another message.  Another call, another message.  Finally – his wife phoned us. Remember I told you this process takes diplomacy and chutzpah?  Turns out the candidate was working in a town his wife thought was unfit for raising their children.  The job we were offering was in a town she thought would be great for the family. Could we help get his career (and maybe the marriage) back on track?

Long story short, we got him the interview.  The candidate got the job, and my client got the compliance department problem solved.  Another happy ending.

It took three months, start to finish.  Should a busy C-suite executive or HR manager rely on a specialty search firm to get the job done?  Yes. We applied three full time dedicated employees to this search for the three-month period – that amounts to 360 hours.  So why was our client unable to hire the CCO by their own efforts?

Well, consider these facts:

• The client posted the job to all the job boards, but only 15 percent of qualified professionals are actively looking for a job.  Most of them are too busy working.  They’re not scouring job boards.  That means 85 percent of qualified candidates aren’t actively looking for a new job — but they may be receptive if they’re personally contacted…in the right way.
• The client did assign the job opening to an internal recruiter. But does the internal recruiter have a massive database of compliance professionals to tap and the personal relationship with them?  No way.  He had to start identifying candidates from scratch.
• Does the internal recruiter have hundreds of hours to devote to one search?  No, an internal recruiter is assigned as many as 20 open requisitions to fill at any given time.
• Does the internal recruiter have the expertise required to evaluate a compliance officer?   Typically not; most are generalists.
• Does the internal recruiter have the resources to put together a compelling presentation to entice a candidate to listen to the opportunity?   Typically no.  A dynamic presentation to highly sought-after professionals requires a presentation that speaks to the positives of the company, the job, the culture, the career growth options, the community, etc.

So why do companies that want top compliance professionals retain our firm?  It’s just like retaining a law firm for litigation purposes. You’d never attempt to represent yourself in court without an attorney, right?

Hiring authorities work with Conselium to tap its vast network of top talent. It works to match a company’s needs with the right professional. For Candidates, those who work with Conselium get access to a “hidden” ’ job market of unadvertised positions. Finally, Conselium focuses on compliance, audit and regulatory counsel positions. To check out the company and get in touch with Maurice for your compliance search needs, click here.