Major compliance scandals and enforcement actions, nonstop political and regulatory drama in Washington, D.C., the rise of transformative technologies, and much more all made compliance headlines in 2017. With the inauguration of President Trump, the year began with an air of regulatory uncertainty as compliance officers wondered exactly what rulemaking the new administration would roll back, defund, or overturn with a stroke of an executive pen. And there was further uncertainty with a Congress that promised to overturn healthcare reform, diminish the Dodd-Frank Act, and overhaul corporate taxation. Meanwhile, major enforcement actions continued to roll in, as did major corporate compliance failures around the world, some of which merely resulted in reputational damage while others resulted in massive financial losses. And as the year wound down, we saw yet another massive leak of confidential legal files that uncovered what the world already knew: that many of the most powerful individuals and organizations on the planet routinely use, abuse, and misuse financial law to preserve wealth and exert influence. With 2018 on the horizon, the question on everyone’s mind is not whether the next year will top this one in terms of attention-grabbing developments … but by how much it will do so.
