Ethics Officer Association Study Shows Companies Taking A Proactive Approach to Compliance Risks.WALTHAM, Mass. -- The Ethics Officer Association, the national association for managers responsible for ethics and compliance programs (www.eoa.org), today issued the results of the most comprehensive broad-based survey of corporate compliance risk assessment practices. The survey was conducted in advance of the November 1, 2004 effective date of the revised Corporate Sentencing Guidelines guidelines, n.pl a set of standards, criteria, or specifications to be used or followed in the performance of certain tasks. , which impose significant new compliance program mandates on corporations of all kinds. Among other things, the new Guidelines create a requirement of compliance risk assessments (which differ from operational or financial risk assessments that are more commonly conducted in businesses.) Eighty-five EOA member organizations - representing leading companies in most major industry groups - responded to the survey. The results show that the great majority of respondent In Equity practice, the party who answers a bill or other proceeding in equity. The party against whom an appeal or motion, an application for a court order, is instituted and who is required to answer in order to protect his or her interests. companies have already begun the compliance risk analysis process - utilizing a wide range of techniques to understand better the foreseeable risks foreseeable risk n. a danger which a reasonable person should anticipate as the result from his/her actions. Foreseeable risk is a common affirmative defense put up as a response by defendants in lawsuits for negligence. of wrongdoing wrong·do·er n. One who does wrong, especially morally or ethically. wrong  do by their employees and agents. The survey also found that most respondent companies report on risk information to their senior management, but surprisingly only a minority do so to their boards of directors. An encouraging finding is that many companies are using the results of the analyses to improve the design and implementation of their compliance programs. EOA's Executive Director Ed Petry said, "I am pleased that so many of our members are getting ahead of the new legal requirements by conducting risk analyses. In particular, it is encouraging to see that most respondents In the context of marketing research, a representative sample drawn from a larger population of people from whom information is collected and used to develop or confirm marketing strategy. conduct assessments not only of legal risks but also of the dangers of ethical lapses, which, under the new Sentencing Guidelines, should be on the radar screen of all companies." Jeff Kaplan, a partner in the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of office of Stier Anderson, LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control who also serves as EOA's counsel and who designed the survey, added: "The results do show that our members are being proactive in their approach to compliance risks. At the same time, as the full import of the new law becomes fully understood, I expect to see even greater activity - and particularly greater involvement by boards of directors - in this area." |
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