Archive for 2021

More compliance monitoring, please

Relationships between relevant C&E “checking” categories can be confusing.  For example, auditing can overlap with program assessment and with risk assessment. The line between auditing and investigations is not always well marked.  Monitoring can overlap with program governance and management. Metrics are generally part of monitoring but are sometimes discussed […]

Directors, fiduciary duties and climate change

In Directors’ Fiduciary Duties and Climate Change: Emerging Risks –  writing in the Harvard corporate governance blog – Cynthia A. Williams (York University), Sarah Barker (MinterEllison), and Alex Cooper (CCLI) state: “The last few years have seen a significant change in the understanding of climate change as a material risk to […]

Who is the client?

My latest column in Compliance & Ethics Professional.

The Marx Brothers and Risk Assessment

From Duck Soup Rufus T. Firefly now, members of the cabinet… [pounds gavel] Rufus T. Firefly we’ll take up old business. Cabinet Member : I wish to discuss the tariff. Rufus T. Firefly : Sit down, that’s new business. No old business? Very well… [pounds gavel] Rufus T. Firefly : […]

Moral hazard – the latest

As described in several earlier posts, “moral hazard” exists where there is a misalignment of incentives between those with a capacity to create risks and those likely to bear the costs of such risk taking.  While most Americans presumably are not aware of this somewhat obscure term, the phenomenon itself […]

Redefining compliance recidivism

Last week Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco  announced in the Keynote Address at the ABA’s 36th National Institute on White Collar Crime: “that all prior misconduct needs to be evaluated when it comes to decisions about the proper resolution with a company, whether or not that misconduct is similar […]

Happy anniversary, Corporate Sentencing Guidelines

Monday, November 1 is the 30th anniversary of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, the set of legal standards that, more than any other, gave rise to the compliance & ethics field, In his 2008 book Experiments in Ethics, Anthony Appiah made a strong and important case that behavioral science ideas […]

The oldest conflict

Many years ago a client being vetted for a high-ranking post asked me if a question about prior ethical violations required him to disclose a long since concluded extramarital affair. I replied that this seemed beyond the scope of the question, and I would give the same answer if asked today. But […]

Conflict of interest expertise

Here is my latest column for Compliance & Ethics Professional. I hope you find it interesting..

Conflicts of interest: getting it wrong

In the nearly ten years that I have published this blog I have noted various studies and other sources of insight into the issue of whether individuals and organizations truly understand the negative impact flowing from disclosed COIs. See posts collected here.  (The latest contribution to this area is Bias […]