I am back from Compliance Week 2009, this publication’s annual conference dedicated to corporate financial, legal, risk, audit and compliance executives at public companies. I have been at the conference twice before, but I believe this year’s was the best to date.  As usual, the speakers were outstanding: SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar, Former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, and U.S. Deputy Attorney General David Ogden to name just a few of the luminaries.

My role at the conference was either Jerry Springer or Phil Donahue-like, depending on who you ask: introduce the panelists and the sessions, race around the packed rooms with a microphone, and facilitate and encourage questions from the audience.  I was fortunate to be involved in several terrific sessions over three days, including:

• Alexandra Wrage of TRACE International (and the author of the excellent Wrage Blog) on Vetting Business Partners.  My takeaway: Demanding audit rights from your business partners may not be a smart move after all.
• Lisa Crosby of Sidley & Austin on Compliance, Export Controls, and Intermediaries.  My takeaway: Export controls may well be the “next FCPA.”
• Matt Tanzer of Tyco International and Chris Nowak of Wyndham Worldwide on Third-Party Risks.  My takeaway: Test the demands and inquiries you are making of potential partners by asking whether your company would be willing to answer those questions.
• Neal Stephens and William Freeman of Cooley Godward & Kronish on Structuring Internal Investigations: From the Inside to the Outside.  My takeaway: As well summarized by Doug Cornelius of Compliance Building, “make sure the people with the handcuffs agree to the scope, methods, timing and the sharing of information” gleaned from the internal investigation.
• John Roth, Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Fraud and Public Corruption Section on Your Compliance Program and Enforcement.  My takeaway: Federal prosecutors rely on a public document called the “Principles of Federal Prosecution” to help them decide whether to bring a case. It seems like compliance officers should get intimately acquainted with that document.
• Cynthia Glassman, former SEC Commissioner on Risk Communication - What Boards Want From You.  My takeaway: If management will not take action to address significant concerns you raise as compliance officer, it may be time for you to get out of that company.

Beyond the substantive sessions, I was also struck by the instant coverage of the conference that was available thanks to people such as Doug Cornelius (who captured the many highlights of the conference keynote speeches and sessions he attended on his Compliance Building blog in near-realtime) and Francine McKenna (who also blogged about the event here and “tweeted” furiously throughout the three days of the conference on her Twitter feed).  And who could forget the nimble multi-tasking of Compliance Week Editor Matt Kelly, who deftly tweeted about SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar’s keynote speech from his TwitterFon, then minutes later took the stage following that speech to moderate a Q&A session with the commissioner?

The Twitter presence of Doug, Francine, Matt, Alexander Howard (from IT Compliance Advisor), and others also allowed people at the conference and around the world to follow everything that was going on through the use of a common Twitter “hashtag.”  It’s probably easier to demonstrate this than to explain it, so below you can see every post on Twitter over the last several days about Compliance Week 2009 (#cw2009).

All in all, a great conference. See you in 2010!