Companies increasingly have strong ethical and compliance policies in place to encourage greater cooperation with regulators and investigating authorities, as well as to hold executives, employees, and third parties to account for breaking the rules. It appears, however, many are rarely used, while co-operation with investigations depends on cost and whether spilling the beans would benefit the business.

Neil Hodge is a freelance business journalist and photographer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He writes on insurance and risk management, corporate governance, internal audit, compliance, and legal...