Crafting the compliance response to the Coronavirus

Coping with the Coronavirus will require enhanced vigilance by compliance teams. As boards and senior executives navigate the way forward with their focus on sustainability and financial resilience, compliance officers must ensure they stay at the forefront and visible.

In a crisis situation there is a temptation to think that normal rules no longer apply. This is a mistake. In a post-Covid future that is currently hard to envisage, the virus will not provide any form of defence.

Businesses, like governments, are already under considerable scrutiny for their response to the virus, with daily headlines to damn or praise. Our heightened awareness and the global scale of the crisis means that memories are likely to be long. How businesses conduct themselves in the coming months will matter in the long-term.

So how can compliance teams ensure that everyone in their organisation understands that normal rules still apply?

In the FCPA Blog Leo Martin explores the six steps that compliance teams should be taking now to ensure their oganisations do the right thing.

In addition to health and safety and code of conduct application, Leo explores virus risk mapping to monitor the spread of the virus and map against existing high-risk locations; the increased risk of fraud and the need to ensure that correct procedures are followed when accessing any government schemes to protect business; the need to monitor any temporary suspension of regulations and ensure that globally this does not lead to a lowering of company standards and maintaining contact with third parties and suppliers to offer support and ensure that compliance standards are maintained.

Read the article in full here