Corporate Compliance Services

So, what does it take to be compliant? While every company will have its own answer, the core components of an effective corporate compliance program typically include:

1. Corporate Structural and Organizational Assessment

Assessment of a company’s compliance needs should start at the entity level. What made sense when your company was founded five (or fifty) years ago might not make sense today. Determining what is necessary from a corporate structuring and governance perspective should be one of the first steps toward assessing a company’s compliance needs, and your company’s compliance counsel will need to have a thorough understanding of your company’s organizational and reporting structure as well.

2. Risks and Needs Assessment

As we mentioned, no two companies’ compliance needs are exactly alike. As a result, in order to develop an effective compliance program, you first need to gain a clear understanding of your company’s specific needs. Is your company subject to federal securities laws or the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)? What about federal environmental regulations or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you have no way of knowing whether your company is meeting its compliance obligations.

3. Compliance Program Documentation

With a clear understanding of your company’s risks and needs, you are now equipped to develop a comprehensive compliance program. Companies’ compliance documents should be detailed, specific, and custom-tailored to their specific compliance obligations.

While many companies will have similar obligations (i.e. all large employers are subject to federal anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws), they will still need to address these obligations in ways that reflect their unique leadership model, organizational structure, and corporate culture. With regard to less-ubiquitous obligations such as FCPA and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) compliance, companies’ compliance documents should speak to the specific provisions of the law that apply to their business operations.

4. Compliance Program Training and Implementation

A corporate compliance program is meaningless if it sits on the shelf. In order to mitigate their risk of penalties and liability in the event of a federal investigation or civil lawsuit, companies must implement their compliance programs on an organization-wide basis – and they must document their efforts to do so. Corporate compliance is not just about documentation. It is about actual compliance. In fact, failing to adequately implement a documented compliance program can be just as dangerous as failing to put a program in place, if not more so.

5. Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement

Monitoring and enforcement are key aspects of an effective corporate compliance program as well. The company’s chief compliance officer or oversight board should have a clearly-defined role, and this role should be executed consistently and effectively without influence from competing corporate interests. Employees who violate the company’s code of conduct or compliance policies should be disciplined accordingly, and any systemic issues that are identified should be remedied immediately.

6. Event Response Preparedness and Execution

If an issue arises that has implications beyond employee discipline and internal remediation, the company must be prepared to act quickly. Various federal statutes and regulations incorporate response provisions into their compliance requirements, and companies may be required to disclose violations to federal authorities, their clients or customers, or the public at large. However, before taking these types of measures, companies must be certain that they are necessary, and they must have a clear and executable plan that involves acting on the advice of the company’s compliance counsel.