Compliance

A major headache for retailers, payment processors and financial institutions transitioning to the new PCI DSS 3.0 standard is communicating some 100 new requirements to their work-force.

Unlike other jurisdictions, such as the U.S., which require a plaintiff to show that common issues within the class predominate over individual issues, Australian plaintiffs are required only to show at least one substantial common issue of law or fact between members of the class.

When trust is violated the damage can be far reaching. The old axiom, “it takes a lifetime to build trust and a second to ruin it” is an apt warning. Trillions of paper profits have been lost because of a loss of trust!

No matter the product, service or industry, mission or corporate philosophy, nearly every business is bottom line-driven. Every so often, a new technology emerges that radically changes the productivity landscape and industry’s related profitability potential in kind.

Many researchers refer to organizational culture as one of the key factors that lead to collective corruption. Richard Bistrong and Jamie-Lee Campbell discuss...

Continuing with my obsession to define an “effective” ethics and compliance program, there are certain requirements that if not present, you know you are looking at an ethics and compliance program that is not “effective,” almost by definition.

Globalization, regulation, competition -- these make today’s workplace more complicated than ever. This causes professionals to flounder as they try to perform at a high level and achieve career mobility.

You assign one of your staff to complete fieldwork for a major project. The associate is not capable of providing the requested services and tells you well before the deadline. How do you reward this person’s honesty and trust in you?

When building compliance programs, the best rule of thumb is to make sure that employees are not giving bribes to anyone, no matter the recipient. The potential applicability of other laws that reach commercial bribery, like the U.K. Bribery Act, also make the distinction of who is and is not a “foreign official” less important.

It's maddening to watch companies in compliance trouble make the rookie mistake of believing that a high profile candidate with a legal, regulatory, law firm or prosecutorial background is the silver bullet for compliance problems. If a best practice ethics and compliance program is what you need, the place to go is to the profession with the subject matter expertise.

T.S. Eliot famously said "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go." This could not ring more true in business, with risk often propelling professionals and businesses to new heights. But, risk is often out of our comfort zone and many are reluctant to take those barrier-shattering leaps of...

DOJ has demonstrated that companies can plead guilty to criminal offenses and survive. In addition, DOJ can impose the same requirements on a company in a guilty plea as a DPA. If companies choose to go to trial and lose, the Court then can fashion an appropriate sentence based on recommendations from the Justice Department.