Compliance

Electronic Information Deluge Putting a Strain on Records Management

May 22, 2012

Despite increased resources and good intentions, companies are still fumbling when it comes to executing a comprehensive information management program that balances the unique needs of physical and electronic documents. A recent survey from Iron Mountain found that nearly three-quarters of respondents said they lacked a cohesive, multi-year strategy for records and information management. More survey results inside.
 

International Compliance Programs: Think Globally, Act Locally

April 24, 2012

Squaring the need for a single global ethics and compliance program with the diverse range of cultures around the world has never been easy. Monitoring and reporting tools help, but there's no substitute for in-person visits. "All too often compliance teams make themselves unapproachable. You have to avoid that at all costs," says Greg Triguba, principal at Compliance Integrity Solutions.
 

Measuring the Effectiveness of Compliance

April 03, 2012

The saying is that what gets measured gets managed. But apply that wisdom to the question of measuring the effectiveness of an ethics and compliance program, and things start to get a bit fuzzy. Inside, we take a look at the art of measurement: the metrics, the people doing the measuring, and how you snap all the data into one picture.
 

The Future of Compliance: Metrics and Communicating Risks

April 03, 2012

What's on the horizon for compliance and ethics? Metrics and communicating risks will dominate the agenda, say compliance executives. As companies expand overseas, they need better tools to measure and identify risk areas such as corruption. "The compliance function has become much more about metrics, especially for third-party vendors," said Brackett Denniston, general counsel at GE. More inside.
 

Starting a Compliance Program From Scratch

March 13, 2012

As many compliance officers know, being a compliance department of one is difficult enough. What if you're an organization's first-ever compliance officer? How do you go about building a program from scratch? Inside, we provide some insights on getting a compliance program off the ground. A more in-depth discussion of the topic will take place at the Compliance Week 2012 conference. Details inside.
 

Choosing a Compliance-as-a-Service Vendor

December 06, 2011

Some companies are giving up on trying to keep pace with rapidly changing regulations on information systems. Instead, they are outsourcing the task to compliance-as-a-service providers. "Now they can get a snapshot of the entire business and look at it from a much broader stance," says Jim Stickley, chief technology officer and co-founder of TraceSecurity, an IT security firm.
 

The Reasonable Person: Internal Audit's Role in Internal Investigations

November 08, 2011

Yes, sometimes the best response to an allegation of misconduct is to commission an external investigation—but in many cases, an internal investigation will do just as well. How can you assure objectivity and independence in those cases? Inside, Compliance Week Columnist José Tabuena explores internal audit's role in serving as the "reasonable person" whose expectations are what counts in court.
 

Report Faults Investment Advisers for Lack of Compliance Oversight

October 25, 2011

A recent report from the North American Securities Administrators Association finds a raft of compliance problems at investment advisers in the United States and Canada. Among the problem areas are registration with regulators, recordkeeping, and unethical business practices. More inside.
 

Measuring Compliance Program Effectiveness

July 19, 2011

A study by Compliance Week and PwC shows that many companies are still lost when trying to measure the effectiveness of their compliance programs: A whopping 38 percent admit they don't try to measure effectiveness at all. Why is that? How can you get ahead of the "effectiveness question?" Our analysis is inside.
 

Companies Struggling with Anti-Bribery and Corruption Compliance, Survey Shows

June 02, 2011

A new survey of U.S. and British companies finds that while many are making great strides to improve their fights against corruption, plenty more are still struggling. One telling statistic: 40 percent of respondents who said they train employees on corruption risks don't do the same for resellers or other third parties. More inside.
 

Integrating Compliance, ERM Takes Planning, CSC Says

May 26, 2011

When Computer Sciences Corp. decided to get more aggressive with compliance, ethics and enterprise risk management, Chris DePippo found himself holding a job title he never expected.
 

Chamber of Commerce Says Whistleblower Rule 'Undermines' Corporate Compliance

May 25, 2011

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that the Security and Exchange Commission's final whistleblower rule, which does not require reporting a potential fraud to companies when it is also reported to regulators, is like not calling firefighters to extinguish a raging fire and instead calling lawyers to sue over it. The SEC declined to comment on the Chamber's criticism.
 

FTC Accuses Companies of 'Unreasonable' Data Security Programs

May 04, 2011

The Federal Trade Commission has charged two companies with failing to keep their customers' data secure. Among the charges are that the firms did not implement reasonable data security procedures and that they failed to follow their own data security policies.
 

Axioms and Proof of Compliance

March 01, 2011

Mathematical axioms and proofs can be powerful tools for applying discipline and unearthing bedrock truths in any number of fields. Inside, Columnist José Tabuena dusts off his high school geometry lessons to find some fundamental axioms in ethics and compliance, and to derive a few formulas for evaluating your program's effectiveness.
 

Anti-corruption Trends: What to Expect in 2011

February 22, 2011

A reminder for compliance professionals who think they've got Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance in the bag: Don't forget to do a regular gut check.
 

Survey Sheds Light on Financial Services Compliance

February 21, 2011

Compliance officers struggling to manage the current avalanche of regulatory changes may be interested in how some of their counterparts in the financial services industry are spending their time these days.
 

A Tale of Two Strategies for SOX Compliance

September 28, 2010

Not often do I see two interesting corporate announcements about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance in the same morning, but it happened earlier today. First, the Australian company Alloy Steel International told the word that it plans to de-register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Why? Compliance costs. Specifically the company singled out...
 

What Mark Hurd and HP Tell Us About Compliance

August 12, 2010

Last Friday afternoon I had the opportunity to meet a newly minted chief compliance officer. She had been in the job only one month, was passing through town, and wanted to talk about the current events in compliance over lunch. We settled into a restaurant near my office and began...
 

Supply Chain Risks in the Personnel Department

May 12, 2010

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a rather intriguing report yesterday that should give compliance and financial reporting executives pause: the labor market is getting tighter. More people quit their jobs in March (1.87 million) than were laid off (1.83 million). It was the second consecutive month we’ve seen the...
 

Goldman Analysis: Lessons for CCOs

April 18, 2010

The fraud charges leveled against Goldman Sachs on Friday are—or more accurately, could be—a pivotal moment as the United States continues its long, slow extrication from the financial crisis. The 22-page complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission is almost too painful to read, filled with damning e-mail excerpts and fact...
 

Chief Compliance Officers, SEC-style

April 09, 2010

Let's dispense with the obvious right away: the Securities and Exchange Commission's new chief compliance officer is named Kathleen Griffin. She has the same name as the comedian Kathleen Griffin, who hosts a stand-up show on cable TV about achieving minor fame and having lots of gay friends. The lawyer Griffin...
 

The Regulator Dilemma: No Right Answer

March 29, 2010

I hosted another of our Compliance Week editorial roundtables last week, this time co-hosted by Deloitte and looking particularly at compliance challenges in the pharmaceutical sector. At first I wasn’t sure how the discussion might unfold; Compliance Week normally doesn’t delve too deeply into any single industry’s compliance regime, because...
 

Judge Uncorks True Feelings About Compliance Monitors

March 22, 2010

God, I love it when a federal judge goes off-script. Most events in federal court are terribly dull, the carefully scripted culmination of legal briefs fired back and forth among various parties for years. But once in a great while, a judge goes a little nuts—as happened last week with...
 

The Compliance Week in Preview

February 21, 2010

We’ve got quite a week of compliance and governance news coming up this week, folks. I can’t recall the last time we’ve seen so many different stars in our particular universe align, so perhaps it’s worth drafting a scorecard for the week:Shareholder activism and disclosure. Remember that investor advisory committee...
 

The Myth of the Black Swan

November 10, 2009

Perhaps it’s time to start shooting those black swans.For the last several months we’ve all heard more and more about risk management, primarily because a class of supposed geniuses on Wall Street ruined the economy for the rest of us. Now the buzzword in Washington is risk management, all the...
 

Compliance Tips From People Who Know

September 15, 2009

Any compliance officers looking for ammunition to take into budget planning meetings for 2010, I have some for you—not that the news is exactly what corporations want to hear.I’ve been attending the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics’ annual conference for the last two days, and this morning attendees heard...
 

The Wrong Action for the Right Reasons?

August 24, 2009

I’ve been writing about corporate compliance for a long time, and like most executives who use Compliance Week, I’ve become comfortable using the abstract terms we all do when talking about the idea of “compliance.” But two incidents in the news recently remind me that for all our theoretical understanding...
 

Compliance Week Podcasts ...

Every week we chat with leading thinkers in compliance, auditing, risk management, public policy and more. These short (10-15 minutes) interviews are free to all. Follow Compliance Week podcasts on iTunes.

Compliance Week LinkedIn Group

Compliance Week now has a companion group on LinkedIn, where members can network and discuss the compliance and governance news of the day. Open to all compliance professionals, free to join.

Survey of the Week


Deloitte is conducting their annual Look Before You Leap: Managing Risks in Global Investments survey to better understand the approaches companies are taking to address compliance and integrity-related risks in emerging markets. 

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