Posts Tagged ‘cco liability’
A Double Whammy of Accountability
Holy cow! The compliance world had two big stories break within the last 24 hours: one about a Wall Street bank trying to hold employees accountable for good behavior, the other about the legal risks for corporate executives who don’t. We can start with the Wall Street bank, because everyone loves to pick apart what…
Read MoreYe Olde CCO Certification Idea
Here’s an intriguing question about compliance officers certifying the effectiveness of their compliance programs: Could we trace this idea, at least partly, back to an FCPA opinion release the Justice Department published in 2020? This notion came to me from a sharp-eyed compliance officer who was reading the opinion release the other day. It involved…
Read MoreDanske Bank CCO to Depart in 2024
The chief compliance officer at Danske Bank has announced that he will be leaving the bank in 2024, raising a delicate but important question. Who’s going to certify the effectiveness of Danske Bank’s compliance program to the Justice Department when the bank is scheduled to do that in 2025? Satnam Lehal, Danske Bank’s chief compliance…
Read MoreABB: CCO Certification After All!
Well this is quite the plot twist: the chief compliance officer and the CEO for Swiss industrial giant ABB will indeed need to certify the effectiveness of ABB’s compliance program as part of the company’s FCPA settlement announced last week. That requirement was included in the company’s deferred-prosecution agreement, which the Justice Department did not…
Read MoreMore Major Justice Dept. News
Corporate compliance officers, drop everything. We have a second speech from the Justice Department about corporate misconduct and compliance programs that needs your immediate attention. Assistant attorney general Kenneth Polite gave the speech in Texas on Friday. It follows the speech that his boss, deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, gave one day earlier in New…
Read More‘Reasonably Designed’ Programs, Part II
Our post last week about the lack of clear standards for a “reasonably designed” compliance program drew lots of comment from compliance professionals — enough that the issue deserves continued exploration, since there’s plenty more to say on the subject. First let’s consider a concrete example of the confusion that could arise here. Imagine your…
Read More‘Reasonable Design’ and CCO Certifications
Today I want to revisit the Justice Department’s plans to have chief compliance officers certify the effectiveness of their compliance programs, to unpack a question that’s been bothering me. When the department says it wants certification that your program is reasonably designed to prevent future violations, what does “reasonable” actually mean? Readers of Radical Compliance…
Read MoreLawyer Busted on Fake Complaints Scam
Unbelievable story today from the annals of Compliance Professionals Gone Wild: the former lawyer for a Tennessee trucking company has been disbarred for fabricating employee complaints, which he then used to launch sham remediation hearings and pocket the settlement money himself by forging the employees’ signatures. The lawyer in question is one Glen Ray Fagan,…
Read MoreThoughts on Training and CCO Certifications
So there I was the other day, talking with a compliance officer who helps with training at a large global corporation. We were chatting about a fairly common question in the field: should companies allow people to test out of compliance training if they already know the subject matter? That’s a complicated question unto itself,…
Read MoreOn Compliance Officers Certifying Their Programs
Folks, we need to talk about the Justice Department’s new idea to have chief compliance officers certify at the end of a deferred-prosecution agreement that their company’s compliance program is reasonably designed and effective. I am a fan of the Justice Department and strong compliance programs — but can something like this really work in…
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