Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
The Justice Department released a refreshed set of guidelines on how prosecutors should evaluate corporate compliance programs. The Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations in the United States Attorney’s Manual describe factors that prosecutors should consider in conducting an investigation of a corporate entity, determining whether to bring charges, and negotiating plea or other … Read more »
At their April meeting, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to adopt changes to Chapter 8 of the Sentencing Guidelines Manual. That chapter defines an effective compliance and ethics program and has been one of the sacred texts of the compliance profession. Here is my summary of the changes: Changes to §8B2.1 In defining an Effective … Read more »
More focus has been aimed at the need for compliance programs at public companies. Of course, that focus has been largely drive by the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. The other focus comes from highly regulated industries like financial services that require compliance programs. That doesn’t mean that private companies can ignore compliance. There are many more … Read more »
The United States Sentencing Commission has proposed some changes to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Of the eight changes, one should catch the eye of compliance professionals. There is a proposed amendment to Chapter Eight of the Guidelines Manual regarding the sentencing of organizations, including proposed changes to §8B2.1 (Effective Compliance and Ethics Program) and §8D1.4 … Read more »
At last week’s Compliance Week Conference, I saw a paradigm shift in thinking about the factors to be included in a compliance program. Most compliance programs have placed a lot of emphasis on the federal sentencing guidelines. After all, those guidelines give credit for having an effective compliance program. So you want to have an … Read more »
This session at Compliance Week Conference 2009 was another “dark session” so I am not sharing detailed notes, merely a perspective on some issues that were presented. John Roth, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Fraud and Corruption Section shared his insights and Bruce Carton did his best Phil Donahue impression by eliciting questions from … Read more »
Rebecca Walker of Kaplan & Walker LLP is the author of a report on A Benchmarking Survey on Third-Party Codes of Conduct (register to download) sponsored by The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics. The SCCE received survey results from more than 400 compliance professionals on how they deal with third-party compliance policies. As Rebecca … Read more »
Ed Petry of the Ethical Leadership Group put together a two part paper on Assessing Corporate Culture: Assessing Corporate Culture – Part I and Assessing Corporate Culture – Part II. [There are] specific steps that compliance and ethics officers can take to begin the process of identifying their organizations’ culture including: • Conduct surveys, focus … Read more »
Section 8B2.1 of the 2007 version of the United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines define and “effective compliance and ethics program” for purposes of section (f) of § 8C2.5 for the Culpability Score and section (c)(1) of §8D1.4 for Recommended Conditions of Probation – Organizations: (a) To have an effective compliance and ethics program, for purposes … Read more »