Compliance survey shows clawback policies and cooperation tools largely unused

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.

Interational law firm White & Case’s latest annual Global Compliance Benchmarking Survey, based on the views of 265 senior compliance, legal and risk professionals at global companies, found that companies were still weighing up the pros and cons of self-reporting potential misconduct to enforcement bodies like the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)—despite the possibility of gaining leniency—while mechanisms in place to financially penalise employees and even contractors for breaking the rules are hardly used.