Jkaplan


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 […]

Making the most of your risk assessment (part 2)

Here is a just-published post on risk assessment from the FCPA Blog. I hope you find it useful..  

Combining COI program and risk assessments

COI risk assessments and program assessments are two different things. But they can overlap to some degree and so it makes sense to consider how/how much they should fit under “one roof.” This is particularly so when both procedures are based principally on employee interviews, with some danger of duplication. […]