FCPAméricas Blog
Como se dice “Whistleblower”? (Part 1: Latin Americans Learning about Dodd-Frank)
2.10.2012
The Frank-Dodd whistleblower provisions became effective almost exactly six months ago. Then, three months later, the SEC provided initial data on the whistleblower program in an Annual Report to Congress. From this report, we know that 10% of the tips in the first several weeks came from abroad, and that some of those were from Latin America.
[Part 1 of this blog series considers how Latin Americans are learning about Dodd-Frank. Part 2 considers whether whistleblower protections can extend to Latin Americans.]
Given this information, companies operating in Latin America clearly need to be aware of the risk of whistleblowers from their Latin America operations. What should be even more worrying is that this is likely just the tip of the iceberg – knowledge of the possible recoveries for whistleblowers (a foreign concept in most Latin American legal systems) is bound to spread throughout the region over time.
How are people in the region learning about the whistleblowe... Read more
Ten Rules for Effective Internal Investigation Interviews
2.08.2012
Conducting interviews is a vital skill for internal FCPA investigators. After reviewing endless emails, technical memos and accounting ledgers, we almost always have to speak directly to someone in order to run potential FCPA violations to ground.
Often, the primary objective of such interviews is to elicit as much information as possible about the underlying matter. Here are my ten rules for ensuring this happens.
1. Preparation is half the battle – maybe more. The difference between a well-planned interview and one where the interviewer “wings it” is like night and day. And the stakes are high. Surprising facts can come to light during “routine” interviews, and interviewers often get only one opportunity to meet with a witness. A well-considered interview outline can keep you on track and prevent you from missing important topics after the interview is off and running. It also helps to show that you take the interview and the interviewee seriously, which helps to establish rapport.
2. Establish rapport. As Raúl Saccani, Head of Forensic Accounting at KPMG Argentina, says: the interviewee will be nervous at the start of an interview no matter what. Nervousness ofte... Read more
Lunar New Year Gifts: It’s the Week After, Now What?
2.02.2012
Guest Blog Post – Today FCPAméricas features Farzad Barkhordari, the CEO & Founder of Click 4 Compliance, the world’s premier online compliance training company.
There have been many articles and blogs on the importance of communicating limits on gift giving, red envelopes, moon cakes, etc. Some advocate bans, some point out the importance of clearly communicated limits, procedures, logs and other means of tracking recipients, frequency, and values. These are all great ideas, and Click 4 Compliance has blogged about and trained on these exact same ideas.
But now the New Year has passed and we are all back at work. Now what? How about some verification? Did your employees follow the rules? Were the limitations actually followed? Were recipients and values documented as required? Monitoring/auditing adherence to your policies is a critical part of any compliance program, whether Anti-Corruption, or any other subject.
Do an audit, a sample audit, a country-specific audit. For example, check Gifts, Travel & Entertainment in C... Read more
