The Big Picture

Monday’s news of the merger between Pfizer and Allergan, one of the largest corporate deals ever, is the high-water market for a huge year of M&A activity. That M&A craze poses huge challenges to compliance officers for third-party risk, from IT systems to count third parties (harder than you think) to crafting strong policies for sprawling global enterprises. Inside, editor Matt Kelly examines some of those headaches—none with easy solutions.

The protests and riots in Baltimore last week over police brutality make the question of body cameras for law enforcement ever more pressing. Are they effective controls against misconduct? Yes, Compliance Week editor Matt Kelly says. But when you consider what they say about the state of our ethical culture, he writes, they are anything but the ideal, useful tool we want. More inside.

Compliance officers struggle with IT; that’s not news. This week, however, we have new data that might illuminate why so many compliance departments can’t implement an IT strategy to meet their needs. Inside, Compliance Week editor Matt Kelly looks at which IT typically goes to what compliance tasks, and how you might escape the spreadsheets to find an IT strategy that makes compliance more valuable to the business. 

Compliance Week is delighted to announce that planning for our 2015 Compliance Week Europe conference is now underway, and we are thrilled about how things are falling into place. Registration for the event is now open, so if you are a compliance officer anywhere from Ireland to Ukraine, we encourage you to attend. Editor Matt Kelly has more inside about the agenda and our first keynote speaker.

Corporate compliance executives, we need your help: Please take our annual Compliance Trends survey, to give us the latest insights on corporate compliance programs today. The data you provide will be analyzed and then reported in the Compliance Trends 2015 report, the annual benchmarking study Compliance Week publishes with Deloitte every spring. The findings will be unveiled at the Compliance Week 2015 conference in Washington next May. More inside.

Two truths about corporate compliance: no single solution exists for all businesses, and everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. Compliance Week now has a way to address both those points—our new Data Research Division, where we listen to your company’s specific needs for data about audit, compliance, and risk; and then give you a detailed benchmarking report to help you navigate the compliance obligations you face. Editor Matt Kelly has more inside.

Good news for compliance officers wondering whether their program really helps the company to achieve better outcomes: Our next Compliance Week executive roundtable, happening in Washington D.C. next month, will explore how you measure program effectiveness. If you’re a compliance officer who will be in the Washington area on Dec. 3 and would like to attend, e-mail Editor Matt Kelly at mkelly@complianceweek.com for further details. Admission is free, the discussion is off-the-record, and the peer networking is priceless.

In its full glory, corporate compliance is a complex subject. Compliance Week does its best to provide subscribers with timely, concise looks at news in this field to help you understand how you can build and manage a better compliance program, but let’s be honest—sometimes you need an even deeper dive. Compliance Week now provides even that deeper dive, too. Editor Matt Kelly has more on our new offering inside.