Are You Ready For Some Football? How A Successful Football Organization Can Inform FCPA Compliance In A Business Organization
Are you ready for some football?
For most U.S. readers, the answer is likely “yes” as the football season is arguably the most anticipated sports season and one that transforms the weekends of many (not to mention Monday nights and with increasing frequency Thursday nights – indeed the first game of the NFL regular season is tonight).
For Foreign Corrupt Practices Act professionals, understanding the game is not just a professional diversion, but one that can actually add professional value as well. The reason is because understanding what makes a football organization successful can also inform FCPA compliance in a business organization.
You Be The Judge
The game is baseball is simple. You score more runs than your opponent, you win. Your opponent scores more runs than you, you lose. To score runs, batters have to get on base. A batter gets on base by getting a hit, getting hit by a pitch, or getting walked. The worst possible thing a batter can do is strike out. Striking out represents failure by a batter.
Recently, New York Yankees player Aaron Judge set a Major League Baseball record for batter failure. As highlighted here, over the weekend Judge struck out in his 36th consecutive game breaking the record held by a National League pitcher. (For good measure, Judge also struck out on Sunday pushing the record to 37 consecutive games).
By this metric, Judge is a failure as a batter.
“Domestic Workers Who Have No Involvement In Foreign Sales Probably Don’t Need Training In The FCPA” – WRONG!
Navex Global claims to be the “ethics and compliance experts” and offers training courses that presumably seek to minimize a business organization’s FCPA risk.
However, in this recent post Navex asserts that “domestic workers who have no involvement in foreign sales probably don’t need training in the FCPA.”
This assertion is wrong on so many levels and if followed actually increases – not decreases – a business organization’s FCPA risk.
Friday Roundup
Issue to ponder, scrutiny alert, laughable, silly, $50 million spent in approximately 9 months, and for the reading stack. It’s all here in the Friday roundup.
Issue to Ponder
If the FCPA and U.K. Bribery Act “have been broadly effective in addressing and remediating corrupt practices within … companies [subject to the laws]” as asserted in this article, then why – generally speaking – is there more (not less) enforcement actions under these laws over time?
The Non-Story Of Hui Chen Leaving Her Contract Consulting Expert Position At The DOJ
In this recent podcast, former DOJ contract consulting expert Hui Chen says that her first draft of the February 2017 “Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs” policy document was dated January 21, 2016 but the Obama DOJ never publicly released the document. She also says that DOJ prosecutors don’t even read the compliance regulations they are subject to.
From my perspective, the rest of the extensive – often over-the-top and often misleading – media coverage concerning Chen leaving her contract consulting expert position at the DOJ (which she began during the Obama administration) because she has strong opinions about the Trump administration and in her words “I want to help elect candidates who stand for [values she shares], and [she] cannot do that while under contract with the Criminal Division due to Hatch Act restrictions” is a non-story.