Jkaplan

Compliance incentives, risk assessment and moral hazard

Clarence Thomas: Res Ipsa Loquitur?

Clarence Thomas: Res Ipsa Loquitur? As detailed today in Pro Publica https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court:         “During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations […]

Does your compliance program assessment do this?

Does your compliance program assessment do this? In a recently issued draft book chapter Jennifer Arlen of the New York University Law School addresses a wide range of issues facing the Compliance Function, including program assessment.   She provides a very useful list of assessment methods.   Among other things, she […]

“Goldilocks compliance”

By Jeffrey M. Kaplan Consider the following true story. A company decides to implement what is in effect a zero-tolerance policy for violations of its code of conduct.  Unexpectedly, this seems to have triggered a significant drop in the number of reports of violations being submitted to the company helpline. […]

Risk assessment for small companies

Designing and implementing a compliance and ethics (C&E) risk assessment can be a daunting task.  This is true for many types of organizations, but it can be especially difficult for small businesses. Small companies often lack, among things, the resources, culture, enforcement-related incentives and relevant experience necessary to be successful […]

Conflicts of interest in our Gilded Age

Writing about the COI scandal regarding Justice Clarence Thomas in the most recent issue of Ethics Megatrends Kirk O. Hanson – a long-time thought leader in the business ethics field – argues that we should expect to see tighter standards concerning the receipt by Supreme Court Justices of gifts, entertainment […]

The Fox News case: defamation as a compliance risk

On the eve of trial Dominion Voting Systems secured a settlement of $787,500,000 in its defamation suit against Fox News for Fox’s false statements that Dominion had engaged in election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.  There is undoubtedly much to be said about the compliance and ethics failings that […]

Compliance Officers as “ministers for the future”

In The Ministry for the Future   science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson draws a truly harrowing picture of the cataclysmic harm that climate change could inflict on our planet in the not-so-distant future. Might compliance and ethics (C&E) officers play a part in advocating for the future? His tale is also […]

What are the ethical pitfalls of being a parent?

My latest column in Compliance & Ethics Professional http://bit.ly/3ZoedIQ

Asking a good question as a path to ethical conduct

by Jeffrey M. Kaplan The late Nobel Laureate in physics Isidor I. Rabi once said: ”My mother made me a scientist without ever intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: ‘So? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me […]