Tribute to Sir Christopher Lee and Release of New Book for CCOs

Sir Christopher Lee died yesterday. For several generations of horror movie fans, he was simply Dracula, having starred in the role for Hammer Films in the 1950s through the 1980s. Yet for another couple of generations of movie aficionados, he was known for his work in the later Star Wars series as Count Dooku in both Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. He was also the wizard Saruman in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films.

His characterization of Dracula may have been closer to what Dracula’s creator, Bram Stoker, had envisioned. According to his obituary in The Telegraph, Lee “imbued the character with a dynamic, feral quality that had been lacking in earlier portrayals.” The first Hammer Dracula film was the most successful. The Telegraph stated, “With Cushing cast this time as the vampire hunter, Dracula (retitled Horror of Dracula in America) was a box-office success for Hammer and horror aficionados at the time labelled it “the greatest horror movie ever made”. Lee also regarded it as the best of the series of Dracula films that he made with Hammer. “It’s the only one I’ve done that’s any good,” he recalled. “It’s the only one that remotely resembles the book.””

Lee’s creativeness and greatness in the roles he has played lead-in to my topic today. I am extremely pleased to announce that my latest book CCO 2.0 | Internal Marketer and Soft Skills Required has been published and is now available from Compliance Week. CCO 2.0 provides the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and compliance practitioner with some of the most current ideas on the types of skills that a compliance officer might need and how to market the compliance function within the corporate environment.

In the Internal Marketer section, I take on such topics as The Five Golden Rules of Internal Marketing Compliance; Internal Marketing of a Compliance Program; Getting Employees to Care about a Compliance Program; Getting Your Employees to Internally Market Your Compliance Program; Internal Advertising of Your Compliance Program and Funding Your Compliance Program.

In the sections of soft skills I discuss skills the CCO or compliance practitioner can use to move forward the compliance agenda in a company. I discuss such topics as the use of influence by a CCO; Four Keys to Compliance Leadership; the CCO as Chief Persuasion Officer; the CCO as Chief Collaboration Officer; Communications tips for the compliance professional; putting compliance at the center of strategy and why compliance is different than legal function.

The book is available in paperback and eBook formats and you can find both by clicking here.

While you are on the Compliance Week site, I would also suggest that you take at look at my seminal work on creation, implementation and enhancement of an anti-corruption compliance program, Doing Compliance. If there is one book in your library on how to do compliance, this book is it. In this book I discuss the requirements to build, and execute, a modern compliance program. With a focus on anti-bribery and anti-corruption issues, the book first reviews the basic building blocks a compliance officer needs (code of conduct, policies and procedures, internal controls), moves on to address the proper role and autonomy of a CCO, delves into the most important CCO duties (risk assessment, training, investigations), and always offers practical examples and advice for how a compliance program should work.

Best of all, the paperback and eBook both have newly reduced pricing which should make it a ‘must have’ for every member of your compliance team. The book is available by clicking here.

Finally, if you have not yet checked out my podcasts, after you check out my latest two books, published by Compliance Week, you should head over to the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report or iTunes to check out the latest editions. Some of the highlights are:

Episodes 163 and 166 deal with the FIFA indictments.

Episode 164 – MissionLogPodcast.com co-host John Champion returns to discuss Star Trek – The Next Generation (TNG) and the leadership lessons from Season One of TNG.

Episode 165 – I discuss the BHP FCPA enforcement action and its implications for the compliance practitioner as a strict liability standard because there was no evidence of bribery presented by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Episode 167 – Mara Senn returns to share her top ten practices for cross-border investigations. Senn has some important and useful tips to help the CCO or compliance practitioner think through an approach for an international FCPA investigation.

Episode 168 – Noted criminal defense attorney Dan Cogdell discusses criminal procedure and funding your defense costs, in the defense of an individual Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action. With all the talk coming about the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FCPA commentariat about the need for individual prosecutions, this episode is timely.

Lastly, after you have purchased my two latest books and checked out my podcasts, I would urge you to head on over to Netflix and settle in with Sir Christopher Lee and his great Hammer films. They are the top of 1950s horror movies.

A happy weekend to all.

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

Compliance Week 2015 Wrap Up

Compliance Week 2015 has ended. This year was the tenth anniversary of the annual conference and in many ways I found it to be the best one yet. Matt Kelly and his team put together a conference and experience, which was absolutely first-rate. If you were not able to make this year’s event, I hope you will join us for Compliance Week 2016, which Matt announced the dates for at the conclusion of this year’s event. The dates for 2016 are May 23-26, back of course in Washington DC to be held yet again at the Mayflower Hotel. I wanted to give you some of my thoughts on the highlights of this year’s event and what made it so unique.

At my age, I am somewhat loathe to channel my teenage daughter but the first thing that I noticed was a very different vibe this year over past year’s conferences. From the Cocktail Party reception held on Sunday night, all the way through the conclusion of the event, there seemed to be an air that I have not quite been able to put my finger on. It was more than an acknowledgement and perhaps even an excitement about how far the compliance profession has come in the past ten years. While I have written about the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and compliance profession as CCO 2.0, I had the feeling that we may be moving on to CCO 3.0, as that was even the title of a session.

But this vibe was more tangible than simply a feeling. One key ingredient for me was the use of social media into the conference experience. While many events have a conference app, which can provide you information on such things as the agenda, speakers and their presentations, room locations and the like; the Compliance Week 2015 app was fully interactive, allowing you to live tweet, send IM to fellow conference attendees and receive text messages when a room changed or other conference alteration occurred. It also provided a virtual help desk for all attendees.

Many of sessions were led by CCOs from major corporations and they were able to provide a strategic vision of where they were going at their organizations. This was kicked off from the start of the conference, from the first panel on the first day where the CCOs from Boeing, GE and the Director of Compliance for Wal-Mart began the event. Obviously these are three of the largest companies in the US and do business on a worldwide basis. Yet, while sharing their strategic visions, each one was able to provide a solid example from their respective organization that a CCO or compliance practitioner from any sized company could implement. From Wal-Mart with a workforce of 2.2 million employees, it was keep the message simple. From Boeing, it was incorporate any compliance failures as teaching moments or lessons learned into your internal compliance training going forward. From GE, it was how to inculcate and incorporate compliance into your everyday business planning.

The conversations were excellent as usual. I led the FCPA conversation and there were several alumni present, who told me they look forward to attending each year. One of the reasons is that there is no avenue in their hometowns to get together in an environment to discuss issues of mutual concern. It is concept that Mike Snyder and I used in founding the Houston Compliance Roundtable. A place where you can ask any question and have it answered by another compliance professional in an environment where Chatham House rules apply. While I certainly started the discussion, it quickly became fully interactive with all participants sharing their views on a variety of topics. While we have some great compliance talent in Houston at our Roundtable, it cannot top the level of maturity and sophistication present at the Compliance Week annual conference. We all benefited from the experience.

This experience was doubled when I led a breakfast event on Tuesday. While an inducement to attend was a complimentary copy of my book Doing Compliance, there were 25 attendees who joined me for a very engaging and free-flowing conversation about the state of compliance, we practitioners and where enforcement may be heading. Compliance Week treated us all to breakfast and, once again, I probably learned as much as any one. But since Chatham House rules were in effect, I cannot report on any of the substantive things that were discussed. I will share with you that I am excited to lead such a breakfast again next year and I hope you will be one of the 25 to sign up.

As always there were a number of government representatives who spoke at Compliance Week again this year. For me, the parade was led by Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. While I will be writing further, and in more detail, about Caldwell’s remarks, she said a few things that I think bear emphasis. One was that compliance professionals need to work towards more data analytics in the form of transaction monitoring to assist in moving to a prevent and even predictive and prescriptive mode for your best practice compliance program. Next she emphasized that your compliance program must not be static but must evolve as your business risks evolve. Finally, and much closer to my heart, were her remarks that you need to “sensitize your business partners to compliance.” It was if she was channeling her inner Scott Killingsworth with his groundbreaking work on ‘Private-to-Private’ or P2P compliance solutions. Or, as I might say, she was advocating a business solution to the legal problem of bribery and corruption across the globe.

But Caldwell was not the only DOJ representative as we had Laurie Perkins, Assistant Chief, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit and Kara Brockmeyer, Chief, FCPA Unit; Division of Enforcement from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on a panel moderated by yours truly. First I would urge that if you are ever asked to moderate a panel with FCPA enforcers and regulators, jump at the chance. The reason is that you get to ask the questions you want answers to; even if you get past your prepared questions, when there is a lull in questions from the audience, you can follow up with something you want to know or in my case always wanted to know. So I asked some basic questions like: What is Criminal Information? (to Perkins) and Could you explain the process for the SEC’s Administrative Procedure? (to Brockmeyer). I was certainly enlightened by their answers to both questions.

The event sponsors were of course there to provide information on their solutions to assist any compliance practitioner. If you have never been to an event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the conference rooms are along a wide hall that allows good people flow and adequate room for the sponsors and others to set up, meet attendees and discuss their products and services. I view the sponsors and vendors as a part of the compliance solution going forward and while they are clearly there to sell; they also engage in a fair amount of education. But the education runs both ways with many compliance practitioners communicating needs they have which can be incorporated into new product developments.

Unfortunately Compliance Week 2015 had to come to an end. But the feeling, information and new friends I met will last with me until Compliance Week 2016 next year. I hope you will plan to join me.

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 Passing of Günter Grass and Compliance Week 2015 Is Near

Günter Grass died this week. The contradictions that made up post-war Germany were wrapped up in him as well as any other single person I know anything about. He was a Nobel Prize winner for literature, who, it was revealed late in his life, had been a member of the Waffen-SS during World War II. He was an anti-militarist, anti-nationalist and against German reunification, yet a big fan of Castro’s Cuba. Contractions indeed. Like most Americans, I was introduced to Grass through his seminal work The Tin Drum. It was as haunting a work as I had read up to that point in my life and one I can still remember reading to this day.

In the area of conference excellence around all things compliance, there is the upcoming Compliance Week 2015. While the conference has not had as many appearances as Gehrig’s long streak, this is the 10^th annual event. As usual, Matt Kelly and his team over at Compliance Week have put together a star-studded and first-rate program for a wide variety of compliance practitioners. From the US government there is Margaret McGuire, Vice Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Financial Reporting and Task Force, and Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. For export controls there will be representatives from the Department of Treasury and Department of Justice (DOJ) to bring you the latest on export control enforcement issues. Finally, both Laura Perkins from the DOJ and Kara Brockmeyer from the SEC will be there to discuss Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement from the perspectives of their agencies.

As usual there will be many sessions aimed at the compliance practitioner. Are you interested in developing a strong corporate culture? If so there will be sessions to discuss how to do so from working with your management to have the right culture to building ethics and compliance programs that amplify those values rather than undermine them. Another often-discussed topic is compliance leadership. There are several sessions focusing on this topics as well as moving compliance officers into the new era of corporate compliance, CCO 2.0.

If there are specific geographic areas that you are concerned about there will be conversations about Russia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, China and Latin America. In these sessions, held in smaller groups to facilitate conversations and questions, there will be discussions that focus on ethics and compliance risks in geographic hotspots around the world. Wondering which regulators matter most in a specific area? What training tactics work best for local workforces? Which cultural differences can cause the biggest risks or mis-steps? All those questions and more are prime fodder for these sessions.

Cyber security is becoming more prominent. In addition to the sessions where government speakers will talk from their perspectives, there will also be sessions aimed at the corporate response. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) reporting and money laundering issues will be discussed. Finally, although it may not seem intuitive for compliance professionals but I would urge you to attend the session on the new revenue recognition standards. Even I could understand the prior standards and lawyers and compliance professionals need to have handle on what the business folks need to do to have their sales properly recognized in books and records.

There will be several sessions dealing with training. An interesting one is entitled “Game On: 4^th Generation Ethics and Compliance Education” and will provide you with information on best practices and how to align roles, risks, training priorities strategically and to make the most efficient use of limited training time while protecting the organization. The discussion will be framed around statistics that you can use to drive training decisions and true program effectiveness. Another interesting angle will be through the prism of social media in a session which will consider the new risks social media brings, and the best ways to square its advances in communications and IT with your existing compliance program, whether that’s through new policies, new technology, or a mix of both.

There will be several of sessions dealing with investigations. One I am looking forward to attending is entitled “Compliance Officer’s Role in Investigations and Discipline”, where we will focus on how you can run an effective investigation in some of the most difficult spots in the world, where local law may conflict with what you need to do. The distinguished panel will explore local stumbling blocks to your investigation, and offer ideas on how to complete the job nonetheless. In the era of ­pre-taliation claims by the SEC, discipline is becoming a trickier subject for Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs).

The FCPA is always at the forefront of this conference and this year’s event is no different. You can learn from Leslie Caldwell about overall enforcement trends and from other government representatives on some of the issues specific to their agencies and departments. Lastly, I will be leading a conversation on the FCPA enforcement trends we have seen in 2015 to date.

As usual, Matt Kelly and his team have put together a fantastic event. But the greatest value might be for you to mingle and meet with some of the top compliance practitioners and thought leaders in the country over three days in May. There will be plenty of time for socializing and meeting in the spacious breakfast area, on refreshment breaks or in the always-great Tuesday evening cocktail party.

I have been authorized to offer readers of this blog, who register for Compliance Week, a discount off of the standard rate. To register, please use this link and enter discount code CW15_FCPAFOX (case sensitive) to receive the special pricing. You can read more on the event by going to the following website: http://conference.complianceweek.com.

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

Doing Compliance-The Book

I have consistently tried to bring a ‘Nuts and Bolts’ approach to my writing about compliance. Last year when describing some of my writing on the building blocks of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance program to my friend Mary Flood, she said “That’s great but what about actually doing compliance?” Fortunately for me, she did not ask how as there is no telling just how much hot water answering that question would have gotten me into! Her idea about writing a book which a compliance practitioner could use as a one-volume reference for the everyday work of anti-corruption compliance was the genesis of my most recent hardbound book, Doing Compliance: Design, Create, and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program. I am pleased to announce that the book is hot off the presses and now available for purchase through Compliance Week in the US and Ark Publishing in the UK.

Just as the world becomes more flat for business and commercial operations, it is also becoming so for anti-corruption and anti-bribery enforcement. Any company that does business internationally must be ready to deal with a business environment with these new realities. My book is designed to be a one-volume work which will give to you some of the basics of creating and maintaining an anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance program which will meet any business climate you face across the globe. I have based my discussion of a best practices compliance program on what the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) set out in their jointly produced “FCPA – A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act”, the FCPA Guidance, the ‘Ten Hallmarks of an Effective Compliance Program.” The FCPA Guidance wisely made clear that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it stated, “Individual companies may have different compliance needs depending on their size and the particular risks associated with their businesses, among other factors.” Thus, the book is written to provide insight into the aspects of compliance programs that DOJ and SEC assesses, recognizing that companies may consider a variety of factors when making their own determination of what is appropriate for their specific business needs.

This book does not discuss the underlying basis of the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act or any other anti-corruption or anti-bribery legislation. I have assumed the reader will have a modicum of knowledge of these laws. If not, there are several excellent works, which can provide that framework. The book is about doing business in compliance with these laws. As with all Americans, I appreciate any list that is deca-based, so the format of 10 hallmarks resonates with me. I have used this basic ten-part organization in laying out what I think you should consider in your anti-corruption and anti-bribery compliance program. In addition to presenting my own views in these areas, I also set out the views of both FCPA practitioners and commentators from other areas of business study and review. The book includes the following:

Chapter 1 – Where It All Begins: Commitment from Senior Management and a Clearly Articulated Policy against Corruption  It all begins at the Top, what should management say and do? ‘Tone at the Top’ is a great buzz word but how does a company truly get the message of compliance down through the ranks? This chapter discusses the techniques management can use to move the message of compliance down through middle management and into the lower ranks of the company.

Chapter 2 – Some Written Controls: Code of Conduct and Compliance Policies and Procedures  The Cornerstone of your anti–bribery/anti-corruption compliance program is set out in your written standards and internal controls which consist of a Code of Conduct, Compliance Policy and implementing Procedures. This chapter discusses what should be in the written basics of your compliance program and how best to implement these controls.

Chapter 3 – For the CCO: Oversight, Autonomy, and Resources The role and function of a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) in any compliant organization cannot be overstated. Simply naming a CCO is no longer enough to meet even the minimum requirements of best practices. One of the key areas that the DOJ will review is how is a CCO allowed to fulfill his role. Does the position have adequate resources? Does it have autonomy and support in the corporate environment? Does the Board of Directors exercise appropriate oversight? This chapter reviews the Compliance Function, Oversight, Autonomy and Resources and relates structuring the compliance function in an organization.

Chapter 4 – The Cornerstone of Your Compliance Program: Risk Assessment It all begins here, as a risk assessment is the road map to managing your compliance risk. The implementation of an effective compliance program is more than simply following a set of accounting rules or providing effective training. Compliance issues can touch many areas of your business and you need to know not only what your highest risks are, but where to marshal your efforts in moving forward. A risk assessment is designed to provide a big picture of your overall compliance obligations and then identify areas of high risk so that you can prioritize your resources to tackle these high-risk areas first. This chapter discusses what risks you should assess, the process for doing so and using that information going forward.

Chapter 5 – Getting Out on the Road: Training and Continuing Advice Once you have designed and implemented your compliance program, the real work begins and you must provide training on the compliance program and continuing advice to your company thereafter. This means that another pillar of a strong compliance program is properly training company officers, employees, and third parties on relevant laws, regulations, corporate policies, and prohibited conduct. However merely conducting training usually is not enough. Enforcement officials want to be certain the messages in the training actually get through to employees. The expectations for effectiveness are measured by who a company trains, how the training is conducted, and how often training occurs. This chapter discusses getting the message of compliance out to your employees.

Chapter 6 – Do As I Do & As I Say: Incentives and Disciplinary Measures Any effective compliance program will use a variety of tools to help ensure that it is followed. This means that you must employ both the carrot of incentives and the stick of disciplinary measures to further compliance. How can you burn compliance into the DNA of your company? Discipline has long been recognized as an important aspect of a compliance regime but more is now required. This chapter relates structuring compliance into the fabric of your company through hiring, promotion of personnel committed to compliance and how to reward them for doing business ethically and in compliance with the FCPA.

Chapter 7 – Your Greatest Source of FCPA Exposure: Third Parties and How to Manage the Risk Third Parties are universally recognized as the highest risk in any compliance program. Indeed it is estimated that well over 90% of all FCPA enforcement actions involve third parties. Therefore it is important how to manage this highest risk for an anti-corruption program. This chapter provides a five-step process for the investigation and management of any third party relationship; from agents in the sales chain to vendors in the supply chain.

Chapter 8 – How Do I Love Thee: Confidential Reporting and Internal Investigations In any company, your best source about not only the effectiveness of your compliance program but any violations are your own employees. This means that you must design and implement a system of confidential reporting to get your employees to identify issues and then have an effective internal investigation of any issues brought to your attention. Your own employees can be your best source of information to prevent a compliance issue from becoming a FCPA violation. This chapter provides the best practices for setting up internal reporting and investigating claims of compliance violations.

Chapter 9 – How to Get Better: Improvement: Periodic Testing and Review Once you have everything up and running you still need to not only periodically oil but also update the machinery of compliance. You do this through the step of continuous improvement, which is the use of monitoring and auditing to review and enhance your compliance regime going forward. A company should focus on whether employees are staying with the compliance program. Even after all the important ethical messages from management have been communicated to the appropriate audiences and key standards and controls are in place, there should still be a question of whether the company’s employees are adhering to the compliance program.

Chapter 10 – Should I or Shouldn’t I? Mergers and Acquisitions The last thing you want to bring in through an acquisition is another company’s FCPA violation for which your company must pay the piper; also known as buying a FCPA violation. Effectively managing your mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process can help you to identify risk areas in a potential acquisition and then remediate any issues in the post-acquisition integration phase. This chapter gives you the most recent pronouncements on how to avoid FCPA exposure in this key area of corporate growth and to use the M&A function to proactively manage compliance.

Chapter 11 – A Few Words about Facilitation Payments One of the key differences between the US FCPA and UK Bribery Act is that the US law allows facilitation payments. However, in today’s interconnected world, to allow one part of your company to make facilitation payments while UK subsidiaries or others covered by the UK Bribery Act are exempted out from your standard on facilitation payments has become an administrative nightmare. This chapter explores what is a facilitation payment, how the policing of your internal policy has become more difficult and some companies which have been investigated regarding their facilitation payments. It also provides guidelines for you to follow should your company decide to allow them going forward.

So with thanks to Mary Flood for the idea, Matt Kelly, the Editor of Compliance Week for the publishing platform and Helen Roche & Laura Slater and the rest of the team at Ark Publishing for getting me through the publishing process in a professional manner, I am published to announce that Doing Compliance: How to Design, Create, and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program is now available for purchase.

You can purchase a copy of Doing Compliance: How to Design, Create, and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program in the US by clicking here. You can purchase a copy of Doing Compliance: How to Design, Create, and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program in the UK by clicking here.

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, 2014

Billy the Kid Begins and the GSK China Verdict

According to This Day in History, 139 years ago today, Billy the Kid was arrested for the first time, for theft. Billy the Kid was believed to have been born in New York City and was later taken out west by his mother. He was arrested on September 23, 1875 when he was found in possession of clothing and firearms that had been stolen from a Chinese laundry owner. Two days after he was placed in jail, the teenager escaped up the jailhouse chimney. From that point on Billy the Kid was a fugitive. He later broke out of jail and roamed the American West, eventually earning a reputation as an outlaw and murderer, allegedly committing 21 murders.

I thought about the start of Billy the Kid’s outlaw career and more particularly how it ended as I was thinking through some of the issues surrounding the GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) bribery conviction in China last week. For instance, did GSK obtain a negotiated settlement with the Chinese government when it was announced that the company pled guilty to bribery and corruption and was fined almost $500MM by a Chinese court? Further, what lessons can be drawn from the GSK matter for companies operating in China and the compliance practitioner going forward? Today, I want to explore the lessons that a company might be able to draw from the GSK matter.

I think the first lesson to draw is that the Chinese government will focus more on companies than on individuals. Andrew Ward, Patti Waldmeir and Caroline Binham, writing in a Financial Times (FT) article, entitled “Pain from graft scandal likely to linger”, quoted Mak Yuen Teen, a corporate governance expert at the National University of Singapore for the following, “By handing suspended sentences rather than jail terms to Mark Reilly, GSK’s former head of China, and four of his top lieutenants, the court in Hunan province was holding the company more accountable than the individuals.”

However other commentators said, “GSK got off more lightly than expected for bribing doctors to prescribe its drugs.” The article went on to note, “People close to the situation denied that the outcome amounted to a negotiated settlement. But Bing Shaowen, a Chinese pharmaceuticals analyst, said it was likely that GSK made commitments on research and development investment and drug pricing to avoid more draconian treatment. A further FT article by Andrew Ward, Patti Waldmeir and Caroline Binham, entitled “GSK closes a chapter with £300m fine but story likely to run on”, cited Dan Roules, an anti-corruption expert at the Shanghai firm Squire Sanders, who said that he had expected the penalty to be harsher. Roules was quoted as saying “The fact that GSK co-operated with the authorities would have made a difference.” The article went on to say that Roules “pointed to GSK’s statement on Friday pledging to become “a model for reform in China’s healthcare industry” by “supporting China’s scientific development” and increasing access to its products “through pricing flexibility”.”

What about reputational damage leading to a drop in the value of stock? The market had an interesting take on the GSK conviction, it yawned. Moreover, as noted in the FT Lex Column “The stock market was never bothered. The shares moved little when the investigation, and then the fine, were disclosed.” Why did the market have such a reaction? The Lex Column said that one of the reasons might be that the “China may be too small to matter much for now” to the company.

Another lesson is one that Matt Kelly, editor of Compliance Week, wrote about in the context of the ongoing National Football League (NFL) scandal, in an article entitled “The NFL’s True Problem: Misplaced Priorities Trumping Ethics & Compliance”, when he said that a company must align its “core values with its core priorities.” GSK moved towards doing that throughout the last year, during the investigation into the bribery and corruption scandal in China. Although the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GSK, Sir Andrew Witty, has been a champion for ethical reform in both the company and greater pharmaceutical industry, the FT reporters noted that the China corruption scandal, coupled with “smaller-scale corruption allegations in the Middle East and Poland, has raised fresh questions about ethical standards and compliance.” If Witty wants to move GSK forward, he must strive to align the company’s business priorities with his (and the company’s) stated ethical values.

Which brings us to some of the successes that GSK has created in the wake of the bribery and corruption scandal. These successes are instructive for the compliance practitioner because they present concrete steps that the compliance practitioner can do to help facilitate such change. As reported by Katie Thomas, in a New York Times (NYT) article entitled “Glaxo to Stop Paying Doctors To Boost Drugs”, one change that GSK has instituted is that it will no longer pay doctors to promote its products and will stop tying compensation of sales representatives to the number of prescriptions doctors write, which were two common pharmaceutical sales practices that have been criticized as troublesome conflicts of interest. While this practice has gone on for many, many years it had been prohibited in the United States through a pharmaceutical industry-imposed ethics code but is still used in other countries outside the US.

In addition to this ban on paying doctors to speak favorably about its products at conferences, GSK will also change its compensation structure so that it will no longer compensate sales representatives based on the number of prescriptions that physicians write, a standard practice that some have said pushed pharmaceutical sales officials to inappropriately promote drugs to doctors. Now GSK pays its sales representatives based on their technical knowledge, the quality of service they provided to clients to improve patient care, and the company’s business performance.

In addition to the obvious conflict of interest, which apparently is an industry wide conflict because multiple companies have engaged in these tactics, there is also clearly the opportunity for abuse leading to allegations of illegal bribery and corruption. Indeed one of the key bribery schemes alleged to have been used by GSK in China was to pay doctors, hospital administrators and other government officials, bonuses based upon the amount of GSK pharmaceutical products, which they may have prescribed to patients. But with this new program in place, perhaps GSK may have “removed the incentive to do anything inappropriate.”

This new compensation and marketing program by GSK demonstrates that companies can make substantive changes in compensation, which promote not only better compliance but also promote better business relationships. A company spokesman interviewed the NYT piece noted that the changes GSK will make abroad had already been made in the US and because of these changes, “the experience in the United states had been positive and had improved relationships with doctors and medical institutions.”

In addition to these changes in compensation and marketing, Ward/Waldmeir/Binham, reported that GSK announced it would strive to be “a model for reform in China’s healthcare industry” by “supporting China’s scientific development” and increasing access to its products “through pricing flexibility”. They further stated “Rival companies will now be watching nervously to see whether more enforcement action takes place in a sector where inducements for prescribing drugs have long been an important source of income for poorly paid Chinese medics,” which is probably not going to be a return the wild west of bribery and corruption that occurred over the past few years in China. Bing Shaowen was quoted as saying that the GSK matter “is a very historic case for the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. It means that strict compliance will become the routine and the previous drug marketing and sales methods must be abolished.”

Whatever you might think of the GSK result, the company certainly ended its legal journey better in China than Billy the Kid did in New Mexico. But the company still faces real work to rebuild its reputation in China. Moreover, it still faces legal scrutiny for its conduct in the UK under the Bribery Act and the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Acct (FCPA). So stay tuned…

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, 2014

Continuous Improvement Of Your Compliance Program, Part II

Yesterday, I began a two-part series on continuous monitoring of your anti-corruption compliance program. In Monday’s post, I looked at the regulatory framework for such a requirement. In today’s conclude with some thoughts on how to continually improve and update your Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) or UK Bribery Act compliance regime and take a look again at how the regulators might view your program, in some quick, easy and pithy ways.

Anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering (AML) programs policies and procedures and even export control systems are seemingly in a constant state of evolution. Many companies are struggling with the challenge of implementing effective controls and monitoring risks across a spectrum that could include the three above listed compliance areas as well as others. One area that has evolved into a minimum best practices requirement for compliance is that of continuous monitoring.

While many companies will look at continuous monitoring as a software solution that can assist in managing risk, provide reporting metrics and, thereby, insights across an organization, it should be viewed more holistically. You will need to take many disparate systems, usually across a wide international geographic area, which may seem like an overwhelming process. Justin Offen, explained this in his article, entitled “Mission Impossible? Six steps to continuous monitoring”, where he detailed a six-point program to ensure that your “CM solution doesn’t become part of the problem” rather than a solution.

1. Know your global IT footprint. It is important to understand how continuous monitoring will be incorporated into your company’s overall IT strategy as well as your compliance strategy. This advocates that this inquiry begins with understanding what your current IT structure is and what it is anticipated to be in 3 and 5 years. Once you identify your global IT footprint you can determine which system will be the best fit.
2. Define scope and necessary resources. You should determine what your goal is, begin by identifying your needs and then prioritize them. You should perform a risk analysis and then rank the risks. Next, you need to understand the amount of talent you have in your organization, identify who can implement and work with the system and determine your budget, which may need to be increased based upon your need for outside experts and unknown contingencies.
3. Conduct a pilot or proof of concept. A phased rollout can be used as a proof of concept, which can yield greater functioning efficiency throughout your entire program implementation. It should also allow you to chalk up an early success to present to the inevitable nay-sayers in your organization.
4. Decrease false positives. This is important because improper or incomplete testing may well lead to a larger amount of false positives which you are required to evaluate and clear. From each test, you can further refine your continuous monitoring solution to the specific needs of your organization and increase time and efficiency in your overall continuous monitoring program.
5. Establish your escalation protocol. You should establish a response protocol when an exception or Red Flag arises. This protocol should include an escalation protocol if the Red Flag suggests that it is warranted or additional investigation determines a wider problem exists. This protocol should include specific individuals and departments that need to be notified, the makeup of your initial and secondary triage team and the accountability for each person in the process, all the way up to the Board.
6. Demonstrate control through case management. This demonstrates once again the maxim of Document, Document and Document. You need to be ready to “respond with appropriate documentation of any transaction that’s been reviewed, showing the level of review and any additional steps taken.”

The benefits of such a continuous monitoring program are significant; the creation of documentation that can lead to a ‘ready response’ by a company to an issue before it becomes a larger problem, coupled with the ability to recall all steps and information when a regulator comes knocking. Internally, using the pilots or proofs of concepts, the compliance department can bring in other stakeholders to see the value of continuous monitoring within the organization.

You Have a Strategic Plan – Now What Do You Do?

Have you thought about your anti-corruption through the lens of a strategic plan? If not, you might want to use the formulation proffered by Bruce Rector, in an article entitled “Strategic planning needs constant follow-up to be successful”. Recognizing that a strategic plan can serve as guide for your company going forward, it must actually be utilized to garner any use out of it. I believe that the steps he lays out translate, without difficulty, into steps a compliance officer can take to meet the suggestion laid out by Offen above.

• Review the Goals of the Strategic Plan. This requires that you arrange a time for the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and team to review the goals of the Strategic Plan. To the extent possible this should be done in person. The CCO should lead a discussion of the Strategic Plan and determine how this goal in the Plan measures up to its implementation in your company.
• Design an Execution Plan. The “Keep it Simple Sir” or KISS method is the best to move forward. This would suggest that for each compliance goal, there should be a simple and straightforward plan to ensure that the goal in question is being addressed. Any such plan must be specific with clear goals for all involved, with tasks handed out, deliverables defined and a definite timeline for delivery.
• Put Accountabilities in Place. In any plan of execution, there must be accountabilities attached to them. Simply having a time line is not enough. This means that the persons tasked with the responsibility of performing the tasks be clearly identified, by both the individual so tasked and the actual task they are assigned to complete. Accountability requires that there be follow-up to confirm that these targets are met. This requires the CCO or other senior compliance department representative to put these in place and then mandate a report requirement on how the task assigned is being achieved.
• Schedule the Next Review of the Plan. There should be a regular review of the process. While noting that this may seem time consuming, this means the group responsibility gets into a regularity, which will assist the process moving forward more smoothly. It also allows any problems which may arise to be detected and corrected more quickly than if meetings are held at a less frequent basis.

It is a function of the CCO to reinforce the vision and goals of the compliance function, where assessment and updating are critical to an ongoing best practices compliance program. If you follow this protocol, you will put a mechanism in place to demonstrate your company’s commitment to compliance by following through on intentions as set forth in your strategic plan.

The Regulators Perspective

What does an effective compliance program look like? Over the years, we have heard various formulations of inquiries that regulators might use when reviewing a compliance program. While not exactly a review of a compliance protocol, one of my favorites is what I call McNulty’s Maxims or the three questions that former United States Deputy Attorney General, and Baker & McKenzie LLP partner, Paul McNulty said were three general areas of inquiry the he would assess regarding an enforcement action when he was at the DOJ. They are: first: “What did you do to stay out of trouble?” second: “What did you do when you found out?” and third: “What remedial action did you take?”

Stephen Martin said that an inquiry he might make was along the lines of the following. First he would ask someone who came in before the DOJ what the company’s annual compliance budget was for the past year. If the answer started with something like, “We did all we could with what we had ($100K, $200K, name the figure), he would then ask, “How much was the corporate budget for Post-It Notes last year?” The answer was always in the 7-figure range. His next question would then be, “Which is more business critical for your company; complying with the FCPA or Post-It Notes?” Unfortunately, it has been Martin’s experience that most companies spent far more on the Post-It Notes than they were willing to invest in compliance.

Andrew Ceresney, Director of the Division of Enforcement of the SEC, speaking at Compliance Week 2014, said that he has “found that you can predict a lot about the likelihood of an enforcement action by asking a few simple questions about the role of the company’s legal and compliance departments in the firm.” He then went on to detail some rather straightforward questions that he believes could show just how much a company is committed to having a robust compliance regime.

• Are legal and compliance personnel included in critical meetings?
• Are their views typically sought and followed?
• Do legal and compliance officers report to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and have significant visibility with the board?
• Are the legal and compliance departments viewed as an important partner in the business and not simply as support functions or a cost center?

Near the end of his presentation, Cerensey said that “Far too often, the answer to these questions is no, and the absence of real legal and compliance involvement in company deliberations can lead to compliance lapses, which, in turn, result in enforcement issues. When I was in private practice, I always could detect a significant difference between companies that prioritized legal and compliance and those that did not. When legal and compliance were not equal partners in the business, and were not consulted as a matter of course, problems were inevitable.”

McNulty’s Maxims, Martin’s question on budget and now Cerensey’s questions all provide significant guideposts to how regulators think about FCPA compliance programs. For me, I think the point is that companies which actually Do Compliance are easy to spot. For all the gnashing of teeth about how hard it is to comply with what the DOJ and SEC want to see in FCPA compliance, when the true focus can be distilled into whether a company actually does compliance as opposed to saying how ethical they are, I think it simplifies the inquiry and the issues senior management and a Board of Directors really needs to pay attention to.

Continuous improvement through continuous monitoring or other techniques will help key your compliance program abreast of any changes in your business model’s compliance risks and allow growth based upon new and updated best practices specified by regulators. A compliance program is in many ways a continuously evolving organism, just as your company is. You need to build in a way to keep pace with both market and regulatory changes to have a truly effective anti-corruption compliance program. The Guidance makes clear that the “DOJ and SEC will give meaningful credit to thoughtful efforts to create a sustainable compliance program if a problem is later discovered. Similarly, undertaking proactive evaluations before a problem strikes can lower the applicable penalty range under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Although the nature and the frequency of proactive evaluations may vary depending on the size and complexity of an organization, the idea behind such efforts is the same: continuous improve­ment and sustainability.”

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, 2014

Termination of a Third Party or Breaking Up Should Not Be Hard To Do

One of treats each month for the compliance professional is reading the GRC Illustrated column by Carole Switzer, President of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), in the Compliance Week magazine. Not only does Switzer write a highly informative and useful column but she also includes two standard features. The first is an illustrated guide that lays out visually her counsel and the second is that she also includes interviews from a Roundtable of compliance industry participants. In the July edition Switzer discussed an issue that brings much gnashing of teeth to both compliance practitioners, lawyers from the legal department and business folks alike; the situation where you must terminate a third party relationship.

In the article, entitled “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”, Switzer relates how ‘to avoid pain by planning for the end of a third party relationship’, together with an illustrated diagram of “Third Party Risk Management in Financial Service”; she couples these with a Roundtable on “Financial Sector Third Party Risk” with participants Walter Hoogmoed, Jr., a Principal at Deloitte, Marie Patterson, VP-Marketing at Hiperos, and Billy Spears, Chief Ethics, Privacy and Compliance Officer at Hyundai Capital America.

Switzer begins by noting that it all should begin with “an exit strategy, a transition plan or a pre-nup—whatever the title, it’s best to begin by planning for the end which, in the case of business at least, will always eventually come. Whether due to contract completion or material breach, turning over responsibility to another party, or abandonment of the contracted activity altogether, contract termination is an inevitable phase in the third-party relationship lifecycle.” Planning for the end is important because,  “The more long term and layered the relationship, the more difficult it will be to disentangle. The deeper the third party is embedded in and uses the confidential information of the company and its customers, the greater the risks presented by failing to design a smooth transition process.”

It should originate with clearly specified contract termination rights but that is only the starting point, “ To work out a smooth transition, the plan must also include internal change management processes and policies, designated transition team members, contingencies, and adequate resources and time allowances.” While speaking to risk from cyber-security, Switzer details some of the points for consideration. You should have clear procedures for “data retention or destruction, termination of access control for shared technology, and removal of system connectedness, including consideration of what fourth parties (your third party’s third parties) may have.” Your corporate values must be protected by “clearly designating the disposition of shared intellectual property and infrastructure assets.” Next you need to think through your transition plan by “ensuring rights to hire or continue use of key contractor employees who have been servicing your account, arranging to bringing new contractors or internal managers up to speed, and filing any regulatory or other required notifications.” Finally, bear in mind that your reputation must be protected during this transition process “by controlling and planning for issuance of public statements and social media postings by terminated contractors or their employees, or the best laid transition plans may be for naught.”

In the Illustrated component to her article, Switzer lays out a five-step integrated risk management process, which is a useful view of the entire cycle:

1. Plan and Organize. Under this step you should develop a plan to evaluate the level and complexity of risk. Switzer suggests some of the things you should consider are the volume of business engaged in by the third party representative, the nature of the risks involved, the extent to which the third party representative will use sub-contractors and any required legal or regulatory approvals required for the geographic areas which the third party representative will conduct business with or for you.
2. Perform Due Diligence. Here you should assess each third party’s compliance controls relative to the level of risk you have determined is present. Here the standard inquiries are such items as ultimate beneficial owners, anti-corruption compliance and risk management controls currently in place, incident management and reporting and conflicts of interest.
3. Manage Contracts. This step involves the ongoing review and assessment of the contractual relationship. If new or greater risks arise and they have not been previously addressed, you may need to add new contract terms to address them going forward. In addition to your standard anti-corruption compliance terms and conditions, you should have key performance indicators (KPIs), confidentiality terms and conditions and sub-contractor requirements.
4. Conduct Ongoing Monitoring. Under this step, you need to “oversee and pro-actively monitor and review each third party relationship at a level commensurate with risk” and “ensure that issues are identified and appropriately escalated for remediation.”
5. Manage Terminations. If required, you should follow your established plan for transition to ending the relationship and transitioning to another third party representative. You should also consider the need to “protect information, maintain smooth operations and protect reputation during the transition.”

In her Roundtable, Switzer received some very useful information from the participants in a couple of broad areas. The first was the use of sub-contractors by a company’s third party representatives, which Switzer articulated as ‘fourth parties’. Patterson commented that “If the third party is going to sub-contract work, the bank needs to ensure that the third party has adequate controls in place to assess and manage their sub-contractor risk and that the bank has the ability to terminate their relationship with the third party in the event there is an issue with the fourth party.” Hoogmoed emphasized the ‘interdependences’ of the relationships. He said that “contract provisions should be enhanced for clarity of controls and liability, approvals for serial outsourcing should be implemented, and selective testing for fourth/fifth parties should be considered.” Spears pointed not only to due diligence but also strong contract terms as a key to the management of this issue, “Due diligence coupled with a strong legal contract team are crucial. It is very important to develop a minimum standard, in the contract with the third party, to ensure that the third party only does business with fourth parties that meet the first-party requirements… The provisions should include that no sharing beyond a fourth party is allowable. The last critical point of this is to ensure that the first party adds a mechanism for accountability. This mechanism is what prevents this from becoming a rabbit hole.”

Switzer ended the Roundtable by asking what was the most important part about third party risk management? Spears pointed that “having a solid plan for setting the tone with third parties is the key.” From Hoogmoed’s perspective, it all begins with understanding on risk, or as the FCPA Guidance intones, it all begins with a risk assessment. He said, “Developing some advanced risk tiering and assessment methods will help organizations focus their limited resources on managing the risk, compliance, and controls on the most critical/highest risk relationships. Engaging senior management in the risk analysis and reporting is also very important to balance the appropriate level of risk taking with the costs and investments necessary for the business.” Patterson took a different approach focusing on the feedback that Hiperos has received from their customers, and said, “the most important aspects of the recent guidance all deal with impact. The scope of the guidance has been broadened, both in terms of the expansion of what a “critical” activity is and the redefinition from vendor to third party. The importance of these obligations has been elevated with the explicit inclusion of the board at a much deeper level than previously, and the requirement for independent audit to be involved. And finally, the effort has been expanded significantly to include the entire lifecycle of third party management from planning through termination and every step in between.”

As usual, Switzer’s monthly column provides solid information to the compliance practitioner about what you need to know to inform your compliance regime. This month is no different. Although rarely written about, the termination of a third party relationship can be as important a step as any other in the management of the third party lifecycle. While having the contractual right to terminate is a good starting point, it is only the starting point. You not only need to have a compliance and legal plan in place but a business plan in place as well. For if you do not, you may well find yourself in the same place that Switzer started her article, quoting Neil Sedaka that “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”

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.

Code of Conduct, Compliance Policies and Procedures-Part II

This week, I am reviewing the importance of a Code of Conduct and anti-corruption compliance policies and procedures in your compliance program and how you should go about drafting or updating Code of Conduct and anti-corruption compliance policies and procedures. Yesterday, I reviewed the underlying legal and statutory basis for the documents as a foundation of your overall anti-corruption regime. Today, I want to look at how to go about drafting your Code of Conduct. In subsequent posts, I will consider both anti-corruption compliance policies and procedures and how to assess, review and revise them and your Code of Conduct on a timely basis.

What is the value of having a Code of Conduct? I have heard many business folks ask that question over the years. In its early days, a Code of Conduct tended to be lawyer-written and lawyer-driven to “wave in a defense situation” by claiming that “see we have one”. But is such a legalistic code effective? Is a Code of Conduct more than simply, your company’s law? What is it that makes a Code of Conduct effective? What should be the goal in the creation of your company’s Code of Conduct?

Carol Switzer, President of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), explored some of these questions in an article in Compliance Week, entitled “The Code of Conduct Conundrum”. As a part of her article, Switzer interviewed Jimmy Lin, Vice President (VP) of Product Management and Corporate Development at The Network, and Kendall Tieck, VP of Internal Audit at Workday, for their thoughts on what makes an effective Code of Conduct.

Tieck views a Code of Conduct as not simply a static piece of paper or document “but as a set of expected behaviors that are integral to the fabric of the business and an organization’s value system. A Code of Conduct is not a compliance activity, but how an entity demonstrates integrity and acquires trust from markets, shareholders, customers, partners, and governments. To achieve these outcomes, a careful plan, aligned with a policy lifecycle management framework, should articulate how the Code is integrated in the core of the company’s activities and culture.”

Switzer believes that one of the key components of a best practices Code of Conduct is to integrate the connection between a business’ objectives, its risk and compliance management. There are numerous factors, which can move a company towards having such an effective integration. Switzer wrote that some of these include, “external stakeholder expectations and pressures, internal culture and context, objectives for the code, process of development and implementation, content of the code, consequences for non-conforming conduct, strength of sub-codes (e.g. policies), and employee character.”

Switzer ends her piece by relating that there is a huge benefit to a company for a well thought out Code of Conduct, as a tool to drive both corporate values and sinew the expectations of conduct into the fabric of the company. By designing a Code of Conduct, which can be measured for effectiveness, you can continuously keep the goals moving.

A GRC Illustrated series, provided with Switzer’s article, entitled “The Next Generation Code of Conduct”, lays out six steps for the compliance practitioner to think through and implement during a Code of Conduct upgrade or rewrite. These six steps are (1) design; (2) deliver; (3) interact; (4) measure; (5) maintain; and (6) improve.

Design

Under this step, a company needs to define the behavior that it desires to inspire and allow employees to collaborate at all levels. Lin, said that a key aspect was relevancy, “But times change—business environments change, cultures change, risk appetites change. We all need to keep in mind that the Code, the ultimate policy, should not be a stale document on the shelf. It needs to inspire, engage, and change with the organization.” Tieck said that your Code of Conduct should be “considered a part of the entity’s overall policy landscape. Leveraging an effective policy lifecycle management framework will promote integration and alignment across the policy governance landscape.”

Deliver

Switzer also identified the delivery of a Code of Conduct as a key element of its effectiveness. She said, “modern communication methods that allow the user to engage, interact, and research further behind the Code into related policies, procedures, and helplines for additional guidance can be better monitored and measured. Code content that is integrated with efforts to monitor changes in the external and internal environment can be updated as needed rather than on a static schedule.” This should also include relevant third parties such as suppliers and sales agents. “And failure to comply with the Code can be better identified and tracked, indicating possible need for clarification, additional training, or better screening of employees.”

Interact

Lin pointed out that a Code of Conduct is both a corporate governance document and a marketing document. As such you will need to create a marketing campaign to get the message of your Code of Conduct out to not only your employee base but also relevant third parties. If you have a large number of non-English speaking personnel or employees without access to online training, these factors need to be considered when determining the delivery method.

Measure

Initially, you should prioritize both qualitative results with positive feedback by including such metrics as speed of completion, reminders, which must be sent to facilitate completion of Code of Conduct training, and the percent of employees and third parties who attest to the review of your Code of Conduct. You should also measure the effectiveness of your communication campaign. Tieck suggests drilling down further because each component of your Code of Conduct sets “an expected behavior. Selecting a few critical behaviors to measure and monitor may be adequate for most organizations. These selected measures might represent an aggregate measure of the overall conformance to the code. Large organizations may be able to mine HR data to capture statistics associated with the identified behaviors. For instance, termination reason codes may be one source.”

Maintain

All commentators note that it is important to keep your Code of Conduct design and content fresh. One of the ways to do so is by employee feedback, which can assist you in identifying if your Code of Conduct is not only effective, but also truly reflective of your company’s culture. Lin points out that to gain these insights you need to incorporate both formal and informal techniques for gauging the relevant employee and third party populations. He states, “Questionnaires, surveys, forms and hotlines can be good anonymous sources, but engaging employees in conversation is just as, if not more, important. Make sure executives and managers alike spend time in small-group and one-on-one conversations. Have these conversations throughout the year and across your employee base to get the “real” story. This helps engage the employees and ensure they know you value their input.”

Improve

OCEG advocates that your Code of Conduct should be evaluated for revision at least every two years. This should be done to keep abreast of the changes in laws and regulations and your own business operations and risk tolerances. Switzer said, “Code content that is integrated with efforts to monitor changes in the external and internal environment can be updated as needed rather than on a static schedule.”

Switzer ends her piece by relating that there is a huge benefit to a company for a well thought out Code of Conduct, as a tool to drive both corporate values and sinew the expectations of conduct into the fabric of the company. By designing a Code of Conduct, which can be measured for effectiveness, you can continuously keep the goals moving.

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, 2014

John Bell Hood and the Measurement of Conduct Risk

Readers of this blog know I am huge Civil War buff. Growing up in Texas, I only focused on the Southern side as a youngster and while this led to a sometime myopic view of events, in my mid-20s when I did begin to study the Northern side of the war, because I had never seriously studied from that perspective an entire panorama opened up for me.

One thing that never changed however, was the disaster that befell the South from the appointment of John Bell Hood to commander of the Army of Tennessee, which opposed General Sherman’s advance into Georgia since his stunning defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga and later Lookout Mountain in Tennessee in late 1863. On this day 150 years, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced General Joseph Johnston with John Bell Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee. Davis, impatient with Johnston’s defensive strategy in the Atlanta campaign, felt that Hood stood a better chance of saving Atlanta from the forces of Union General William T. Sherman. President Davis selected Hood for his reputation as a fighting general, in contrast to Johnston’s cautious nature. Hood did what Davis wanted and quickly attacked Sherman at Peachtree Creek on July 20 but with disastrous results. Hood attacked two more times, losing both and destroying his army’s offensive capabilities. Over the next two weeks in 1864, Hood’s actions not only led to President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection but spelled, once and for all, the doom of the Confederacy.

I thought about the risks of appointing Hood to command when I read a recent article in the Compliance Week Magazine by Carol Switzer, co-founder and President of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), entitled “A Strategic Approach to Conduct Risk”. Her article was accompanied by an entry in the OCEG Illustrated Series, entitled “Managing Conduct Risk in the GRC Context”, and she also presented thoughts from a Roundtable which included John Brown, Managing Principal, Risk Segment, Financial and Risk Division at Thompson Reuters; Tom Harper, Executive Vice President-General Auditor Federal Home Loan of Chicago and Dr. Roger Miles, Behavioral Risk Lead, Thompson Reuters.

In her article, Switzer pointed to the “Ill-advised risk taking” which led to the near-collapse of the financial sector as the genesis for the creation of the UK’s new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). But she also noted that conduct risk is something that exists in industries far afield from the financial sector where “sales schemes driven by inappropriate incentive plans and outlandish short-term objectives” can cause severe financial consequences to an organization. As an example of the need for change in the financial section, Switzer quoted Clive Adamson, FCA director of supervision, on the need to address conduct risk, “Achieving an effective conduct- or customer-focused culture is challenging for firms, particularly for those whose focus has been primarily on profitability and shareholder returns. … From what we see, there are key drivers that set and re-enforce this conduct-focused culture, with the most important being clear and ongoing leadership from the top of the organization, constant re-enforcement, hiring practices, incentive structures, effective performance management, and penalties for not doing the right thing, all of which should set the tone for a framework for decision making on a day-by-day basis.”

Switzer continued that “Throughout his speech and other materials published by the FCA, there is a theme that returns over and over again to integrity, leadership, culture, the concept of controls over conduct, and strong risk management—all tied to an outcome of business success. What is this? It is a vision of principled performance—a point of view and approach to business that enables organizations to reliably achieve objectives while addressing uncertainty and acting with integrity. And it is refreshing to see leaders (and in some cases past wrongdoers) in the financial sector rising to the occasion and establishing a principled performance approach to conduct risk, even though they may not yet call it that.”

Harper described conduct risk as follows, “Conduct risk embodies elements of the risks that we have been discussing over the past few years, including not only operational and compliance risk, but also reputational risk and tone-at-the-top. The idea that organizations need to ‘do the right thing’ and balance the immediate pressure of short-term growth and revenue along with meeting the aspirations of equity holders and managers is not new. In the past, conduct risk was primarily mitigated by the long-term focus on the goals of the organization of the board and management.”

In the Illustrated Series piece included with the article, Switzer set out four principles for managing conduct risk. These principles are an excellent starting point for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), UK Bribery Act or other anti-corruption compliance practitioner in that it can be used to evaluate, assess and manage conduct risk in such a context.

Assess Conduct Risks

Miles stated that, “The idea of benchmarking “conduct” as a basis for business, or life in general, is actually of course a very old one. Constraints on behavior are exactly the right direction to go in, though it’s not yet clear how these will be framed, let alone policed. Now with the FCA’s new Risk Outlook 2014, there’s a big step forward. They have a deep commitment to sharing understanding about how various elements of behavior feed through into good and bad product design, into selling or mis-selling.” Based on this Switzer believes that you should first identify potential conduct risks in your business. After such identification, you should conduct a risk and control assessment. From this measure, you can best determine the level of inherent and residual risk. Finally, you should carry out an emerging risk workshop to develop a more complete risk profile.

Establish Risk Appetite

Brown pointed towards the increased complexity in financial institutions as a key problem. As part of the solution, Switzer writes that the first step is to connect the risks, controls and other framework elements to your company’s organization chart. From there, you should determine risk capacity, your company’s current risk profile and its risk appetite. Next you should measure your risk appetite adherence. Finally, you will need to align your risk appetite with your company’s risk governance framework.

Measure and Monitor 

Here Switzer suggests that there be a detailed information collection on any issues associated with risk events. It is important from that point, you begin to track key risk indicators. Miles noted that “Managing risks due to behaviors and cultures requires a deep understanding of psychological drivers and developing programs to modify those drivers”; as such measurements would allow your company to begin to move from simple detection and prevention to predictive controls through the use of behavioral and analytical modeling. Finally, you could use the above information to perform scenario analysis on emerging risks.

Communicate and Manage

Switzer advocates that you communicate and train your company’s employees on your organization’s risk culture. You should also work to ensure that employees have accepted their risk conduct appetite metrics. Brown said, “Behavioral drivers will vary around the world based on societal culture. I’ll focus on what might be appropriate for U.S.-based organizations. Most people operate to maximize their personal return, so compensation structures are an obvious avenue to modify conduct. If my bonus or equity compensation is based on specific targets, such as new accounts, loans written, or customer satisfaction index, I will try to maximize those targets.” This is why you should continue to collect all key data about conduct risk in one data repository. Finally, you should also continue to provide reports and analyses on conduct risk to key stakeholders and regulators, if required.

Switzer ended her article with the following quote from Gary Kasparov, “Think about it: After just three opening moves by a chess player, more than 9 million positions are possible. And that’s when only two players are involved in the game. Now imagine all the possibilities faced by companies with a whole host of corporations responding to their new strategies, pricing, and products. The unpredictability is almost unimaginable.” From this she added, “This couldn’t be truer than when facing the myriad challenges presented under the umbrella concern of conduct risk. Masterful strategic planning and execution is essential to stay in the game and win.”

The risks that General Hood was willing to engage in were catastrophic for his army and the Confederacy. If Jefferson Davis had used a risk conduct analysis to think through the effects of elevating Hood to command of the Army of Tennessee the results might have been very different for all involved. Switzer’s article provides a valuable tool for the compliance practitioner to bring to bear on specific conduct which could put a company at risk.

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, 2014

SEC Sanctions Company for Whistleblower Retaliation

I drove my daughter to the airport today for her summer exchange program in Spain. On the way she asked me what I was going to blog about tomorrow and I told her whistleblowers. She was not familiar with that term so I explained it to her and her response was ‘Oh you mean a snitch’ which she then followed up with ‘Dad, nobody likes a tattletale.’ I digested these cheery thoughts for a few moments and I realized if that is what a 17 year old thinks about a person who tries to inform the appropriate parties of concerns, we still have quite a ways to go in this area.

In Compliance Week, Joe Mont reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought its first enforcement action for a company’s retaliation against a whistleblower. On Monday of this week, the SEC “charged an Albany, N.Y.-based hedge fund advisory firm with engaging in prohibited transactions and then seeking retribution against the employee who reported the illicit trading activity.”

The hedge fund in question, “Paradigm Capital Management and owner Candace King Weir agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle the charges. According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding, Weir conducted transactions between Paradigm and a broker-dealer that she also owns while trading on behalf of a hedge fund client. Advisers are required to disclose that they are participating on both sides of the trade and must obtain the client’s consent. Paradigm also failed to provide effective written disclosure to the hedge fund and did not obtain its consent as required prior to the completion of each principal transaction. The SEC’s order adds that Paradigm’s Form ADV was materially misleading because it failed to disclose the CFO’s conflict as a member of the conflicts committee.”

Regarding the whistleblower, the SEC order reflected, “after Paradigm learned that the firm’s head trader had reported potential misconduct to the SEC, it engaged in a series of retaliatory actions that ultimately resulted in his resignation. Paradigm removed him from his head trader position, tasked him with investigating the very conduct he reported to the SEC, changed his job function from head trader to a full-time compliance assistant, stripped him of his supervisory responsibilities, and “otherwise marginalized him,” the order says.”

The Dodd-Frank Whistleblower provisions not only allowed payment of a bounty for information, which leads to a SEC enforcement action, but also protects employees from retaliation. Sean McKessy, chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, said in a statement “For whistleblowers to come forward, they must feel assured that they’re protected from retaliation and the law is on their side should it occur. We will continue to exercise our anti-retaliation authority in these and other types of situations where a whistleblower is wrongfully targeted for doing the right thing and reporting a possible securities law violation.”

The difficulties faced by whistleblowers on Wall Street have been well documented. In an article in the Financial Times (FT), entitled “Wall Street Whistleblowers”, William D. Cohen wrote about three such persons. Oliver Budde, a former legal advisor for Lehman Brothers, who was quoted as saying “When the tone at the top is ‘anything goes’ anything will go.” Eric Ben-Artzi, a former analyst at Deutsche Bank, who was quoted as saying “They accused me of trying to bring down the bank.” Peter Sivere, a former compliance officer at JP Morgan Chase, who was quoted as saying “I wish I had known that the house always wins.” All three men had tried to blow the whistle internally but were not only rebuffed but suffered retaliation.

For his article, Cohen interviewed the three men. He found that all of them had “made allegations of wrongdoing at their banks, made strenuous efforts to report what they had discovered through internal and external channels and all three were either fired from their jobs after trying to share the information they had stumbled upon or quit in frustration.” But, equally importantly, Cohen believes that their stories, “and the details of what happened to them are important. Not only do they illustrate the existential risks that whistleblowers take when they attempt to point out wrongdoing that they uncover at powerful institutions. They also matter because their stories show just how uninterested these institutions genuinely remain – despite the lip service of internal hotlines and support groups – in actually ferreting out bad behaviour.”

The article also quoted Jordan Thomas, a former SEC enforcement official now in private practice at the firm of Labaton Sucharow, where he heads the firm’s whistleblower practice. Thomas thinks that the anonymous reporting provisions of the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower provisions will help protect whistleblowers. He said, “Essentially most whistleblower horror stories start with retaliation and to be retaliated against, you have to be known. The genius of Dodd-Frank was it created a way for people with knowledge to report without disclosing their identity to their employers or the general public. That has been a game changer because now people with knowledge are coming forward with a lot to lose, but they have a mechanism where they can report this misconduct without fear of retaliation or blacklisting.” Thomas also said “the fact that the SEC could award $14m to a single whistleblower whose identity has remained unknown, despite efforts by the media to uncover it, sends a powerful message that whistleblower identities will be protected.”

One person who is uncomfortable with this anonymous reporting is Beatrice Edwards, director of the Government Accountability Project. She pointed to a recent SEC payout to an anonymous whistleblower, where “The SEC didn’t even reveal the nature of the wrongdoing the whistleblower uncovered, so both the company’s shareholders and the public remain in the dark about what was specifically uncovered and where. All that is known is that the SEC did bring a major enforcement action against a financial institution that resulted in a large penalty and the corresponding $14m award to the whistleblower.” Edwards argued that “the SEC is a disclosure agency, so they should have to establish that [not revealing the information] is really required in order to protect the whistleblower, if they’re going to in a sense subvert their mission . . . They really are not able to justify why they are silent about the name of the company or the nature of the fraud.”

Perhaps the SEC bounty program and the Paradigm Capital Management enforcement action will change the way that company’s view and treat whistleblowers. I certainly hope so because a company’s own employees are its best source of information about what is going on inside the company. As to my daughter’s perception about whistleblowers, I asked her if her school had any type of reporting system if a student saw or was subject to inappropriate behavior. She said that you are supposed to report it to a school counselor. When I explained that was a whistleblower system she relented somewhat. But then she added, No one should rat out their friends. Just like the SEC, I guess we have a ways to go.

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, 2014