Two Examples of Compliance Issues in Trump 2.0

Trump

Today we have two more examples of what ethics and compliance in the Trump 2.0 era might look like: one demonstrating the need for compliance capabilities right now, the other suggesting the ethics and integrity pressures companies could face in the future — and both worth compliance professionals’ attention, because folks, this stuff is coming.…

Read More

FCPA and ‘Under Pressure From the President’

fcpa

One of the great puzzles (to me, at least) about President Trump’s pause of FCPA enforcement was why he might want to allow U.S. companies to engage in corruption with foreign government officials. Now we can conduct a useful thought experiment, courtesy of the news that BlackRock is buying two ports that control access to…

Read More

Why Strong Compliance Still Matters So Much

compliance

Earlier this week I had the good fortune to attend a panel discussion here in Boston of compliance officers talking about how their approach to compliance might change thanks to the arrival of the Trump Administration. As I suspected, all of them said their approach really hasn’t changed at all — and they weren’t sure…

Read More

Study: Open-Source Software Risks Are Rampant

cybersecurity

A newly released study finds that the vast majority of software systems that businesses use to manage their operations rely to at least some extent on open-source software — and the vast majority of that open-source code contains multiple high-risk vulnerabilities.  So says the 2025 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis Report, released Tuesday by…

Read More

Parsing Trump’s Latest Power Grab

Trump

Today I want to return to President Trump’s efforts to consolidate executive power, and what that might mean for regulatory compliance and corporate governance if he succeeds. Our latest example worth dissecting: his executive order issued last week to take control of independent government agencies.  Those agencies include regulators near and dear to compliance professionals’…

Read More

More Musings on FCPA Enforcement

fcpa

I wanted to share more thoughts today about President Trump’s order to pause all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Lots of corporate compliance professionals have been talking about it — and while nobody has any clear sense yet of what comes next, we do have a better sense of the important questions to…

Read More

Trump Halts FCPA Enforcement

trump

OK, the inevitable has happened. President Trump has issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to halt all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and devise new enforcement guidelines for future prosecution. Let’s all take a deep breath, and then move on to consider the implications for corporate compliance programs. Is Trump’s anti-anti-corruption…

Read More

Deregulatory Bluster at CFPB

CFPB

I didn’t expect to write another post so soon on the deregulatory shenanigans of the Trump Administration and the implications for compliance officers, but already we have an example too perfect to ignore: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the deep freeze that agency entered this weekend.  In case you missed it, on Saturday night…

Read More

New AG Signals FCPA Retreat

Bondi

Well that didn’t take long: on the same day that Pam Bondi was sworn in as the next U.S. attorney general, Bondi issued a flurry of policy memos that will have the practical effect of taking several big steps back from enforcement of corporate misconduct laws. Bondi arrived at the Justice Department on Wednesday afternoon…

Read More

DOGE, Baited & Switched

Don’t look now, compliance professionals, but remember the DOGE commission’s promises to streamline federal regulation and improve efficiency? That’s all falling apart. Now it’s just another Elon Musk slash-and-burn campaign to break everything and let others clean up the mess. At least some of those others will likely be you. It seems like just weeks…

Read More