TIf you’re a compliance officer, you have a good idea of what constitutes an effective compliance program. You’ve worked diligently to put the right pieces in place in your organization and continue to provide support and monitoring to help ensure the program works as intended. And especially if your company is in a highly regulated industry, you know who’s looking over your shoulder and ready to pounce if a significant compliance event transpires.
We recently heard from Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell about what she and her staff considers what is—or is not—an effective compliance program. And make no mistake—the Assistant AG, who is chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and her newly hired compliance counsel—are using specified criteria in assessing your compliance program and considering whether to bring charges against your company. These criteria are being used to test the validity of a company’s claims about its program, including whether it is thoughtfully designed and sufficiently resourced to address the company’s compliance risks, or rather is simply “window dressing.”
