Compliance Man Takes a Euro Trip

Welcome to a new season of Compliance Man. This season is called True or False? In this series, I am joined by Tim Khasanov-Batirov, a compliance practitioner who focuses on compliance at international markets for over 20 years. Based on his work experience at six countries as in house compliance officer Tim now consults senior managers and compliance officers globally on complex ethics and compliance matters as partner and Head of Compliance practice for ETERNA LAW.   Tim is a co-founder of Compliance Club, an international community of practitioners. You can learn more about Tim, his Compliance Man illustrated series, a YouTube channel and request advice from him by clicking at Timur Khasanov-Batirov at Linked in.  

In each podcast, we will take on a different issue with Tim; a hot, very often a very provocative topic from the corporate’s real life agenda and find out if is it true or false. It will be a tough and very straightforward talks. We invite you to participate in these discussions by commenting each podcast and proposing topics for True or False series. The most active listeners will be invited to join us. Let’s have a sincere conversation!

Today we will try to find out if only a legally trained professional can be a corporate compliance officer. Highlights include:

• What skills does a compliance officer need?
• Does a legal background provide these skills?
• How does a compliance professional support business in emerging markets?

Join us for the next episode of Compliance Man: True or False? episode. If you disagree or wish to share your views on whistleblower topic please comment below. We will be glad to hear from you. Let’s have a sincere global conversation together.

Resources

Tim on LinkedIn

Tim on Eternal Law

Eterna Law

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Welcome to a new season of Compliance Man. This season is called True or False? In this series, I am joined by Tim Khasanov-Batirov, a compliance practitioner who focuses on compliance at international markets for over 20 years. Based on his work experience at six countries as in house compliance officer Tim now consults senior managers and compliance officers globally on complex ethics and compliance matters. Tim is a co-founder of Compliance Club, an international community of practitioners. You can learn more about Tim, his Compliance Man illustrated series, a YouTube channel and request advice from him by clicking at Timur Khasanov-Batirov on Linked in.  

In each podcast, we will take on a different issue with Tim; a hot, very often a very provocative topic from the corporate’s real life agenda and find out if is it true or false. It will be a tough and very straightforward talks. We invite you to participate in these discussions by commenting each podcast and proposing topics for True or False series. The most active listeners will be invited to join us. Let’s have a sincere conversation!

Today we will try to find out whether companies are eager to be ethical even if they do not feel pressure of potential investigation or regulatory sanctions. Highlights include: 

• Enforcement practice establishes standards and principles that create a right compass, allowing not only to act ethically at person’s view but also to avoid sanctions for the company.
• Knowledge of applicable anticorruption laws, enforcement trends and ethical behaviors of top management lead to success.
• Do companies act more aggressively due to low risk of enforcement.

Join us for the next episode of Compliance Man: True or False? episode. If you disagree or wish to share your views on whistleblower topic please comment below. We will be glad to hear from you. Let’s have a sincere global conversation together.

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Welcome to a new season of Compliance Man. This season is called True or False? In this series, I am joined by my colleague Tim Khasanov-Batirov, a compliance practitioner who focuses on compliance at international markets for over 20 years. Based on his work experience at six countries as in house compliance officer Tim now consults senior managers and compliance officers globally on complex ethics and compliance matters. On top of that Tim is a co-founder of Compliance Club, an international community of practitioners. You can easily learn more about Tim, his Compliance Man illustrated series, a YouTube channel and request advice from him by clicking at Timur Khasanov-Batirov at Linkedin.   

In each podcast, we will take on a different issue with Tim; a hot, very often a very provocative topic from the corporate’s real life agenda and find out if is it true or false. It will be a tough and very straightforward talks. We invite you to participate in these discussions by commenting each podcast and proposing topics for True or False series. The most active listeners will be invited to join us. Let’s have a sincere conversation!

Today we talk about whistleblowers.

‘Behind the scenes” corporates are confessing that:

• They do not like whistleblowers;
• Whistleblowers bring problems;
• They do not know how to protect whistleblowers. 

Yet whistleblowers bring many pluses. Some are

• Whistleblowers can protect company and management from big problems;
• Whistleblowers signal on unethical and unlawful practices.

Join us for the next episode of Compliance Man: True or False? episode. If you disagree or wish to share your views on whistleblower topic please comment below. We will be glad to hear from you. Let’s have a sincere global conversation together.

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Welcome to Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov series. Today we a have a special Christmas podcast. Our goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active FCPA enforcement. We target three specific matters that you might like to address in the course of implementation of your compliance program. Today we will focus on classical but evergreen topic of gifts giving. 

Target #1: How to kill your corporate gifts policy?

If you work at the HQ of an international corporation and believes that all questions with gifts giving in your company are already settled many years ago you might be wrong. The most unpleasant news could be that the reason of this problem are not necessarily rogue managers in the fields, who deliberately violate rules. Look at your global gifts policy and if it says something like “gifts of nominal value are allowed” there is big chance that the problem is already there. Assume that in some countries at which your company operates per local legislation (or updates in the legislation) gifts giving to state officials are prohibited as such or this process is a subject to certain limitations. In ideal case your global policy is adopted in each jurisdiction by local compliance team. We recommend checking out if it is really so as most likely you don’t have compliance folks in each jurisdiction of corporate presence. Another typical problem is when simultaneously in each respective jurisdiction there are two policies. The global one, which allows petty gifts, even if it contains clause on prevalence of local laws and a tailored gifts policy adopted by an office in the respective jurisdiction. In reality the personnel in the fields will get confused which policy to follow.      

Target #2: Toxic Gifts 

The FCPA enforcement practice clearly demonstrates absolute ban on entertainment of state officials and PEPs by companies. It is also clear that it is forbidden to give luxurious gifts and even sometimes small gifts if there is a corruption intent. Still there is a grey area for list of non-luxurious gifts which still might be considered as non-appropriate from my point of view even if there is no intent to influence decision taking. I mean alcohol, for instance. In some jurisdictions it is a common practice to give alcohol as Christmas gift. From my prospective it is not right but still it is just a personal view, not a law.           

Target #3: Non-Toxic Gift

We have touched a couple of problems related to gifts giving and now it is time to get back to talking about pleasant sides of Christmas. It is time to say that Compliance Man has launched a channel at you tube called ‘Compliance Man by Timur Khasanov-Batirov” aimed on sharing compliance tips with professional community. The first video of the series called “1001 Compliance days” is available here. Please feel free to comment and subscribe.

Merry Christmas to everyone from Compliance Man!   

Join us for the next episode of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov in 2020. 

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Welcome to the special 10th anniversary celebration of Compliance Man Chooses the Target. In honor of this celebration with take things in a different direction today as Tim Khasanov-Batirov and myself are joined by Irfan Ahmen. Irfan is a Chief Compliance Officer at Dr. Reddy’s ( https://www.drreddys.com/ ) an international pharmaceutical company headquartered in India. He is also Tim’s boss. Irfan leads the Dr. Reddy’s compliance team globally, driving compliance across the organization at a global level thereby protecting company from any financial and reputational risks arising out of non-compliance and ensuring a culture of compliance and ethics in the organization. I know you will enjoy hearing about Irfan’s journey in compliance, the realities of doing compliance in India and where compliance may be headed in the world’s largest democracy. 

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Welcome to Episode 9 of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov.The goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active anticorruption enforcement. In this podcast series, Compliance Man will target three specific matters that you might like to address in the course of implementation of your compliance program. Today we will focus on improvement of daily compliance activities.  

Target #1: Communications with Colleagues

It is about trust. Success of your corporate compliance program depends on whether your colleagues feel comfortable to approach you without fear. You might have a pile of policies but in the reality of any company, specifically when we talk about emerging markets personal trust to Compliance officer is essential. On practice, this allows to implement proactive rather than reactive approach, when personnel approaches compliance officer with their ethical dilemmas prior to acting.     

 Target #2: Generation Y

Recently I was teaching Compliance class at the Summer School at Baltic Federal University. I have noticed that for generation Y and specifically for those who were born in 1990-s methods of teaching/training compliance should differ from techniques used for people of older age. The main difference is that youngsters are able and used to deploy internet search much more actively comparing to older folks. In addition generation Y feels comfortable to self-educate themselves due to availability of gadgets using which they can google virtually any compliance related information. I would suggest having in mind the above mentioned in the course of preparation of compliance trainings to young personnel.         

 Target #3: Keep your Compliance Eyes Open

The biggest mistake compliance officer could make is to limit himself to a couple of areas, which historically are associated with compliance department’s area of responsibility as drafting anticorruption policies for instance without paying attention to business processes, projects, corporate initiatives which might also contain FCPA risk but needs analytical efforts from Compliance officer to be spotted.  It is much easier in daily routine to look solely on gifts practices as it contains a compliance associated ‘hashtag’ GIFT than to mitigate risks integrated in business processes.  Such situation is depicted in one of the releases of Compliance Man illustrated series   http://complianceinpostussr.com/compliance-man-of-integrity-corp-episode-7-mistakes/#comment-19

The best way to manage the ‘hashtag’ approach is a compliance risk register. Just go to the process, project or corporate initiative where the FCPA risk might take place. Keep your compliance eyes open to evolving corporate reality.     

Join me for the next episode of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov.

Learn more compliance tips from Tim Khasanov-Batirov at:

http://complianceinpostussr.com/& http://complianceinpostussr.com/blog/

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Welcome to Episode 8 of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov. The goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active anticorruption enforcement. Today we will focus on future of compliance in the reality of emerging markets.

Target #1: What is Compliance?

During last ten years, Compliance Man has been witnessing interesting phenomena. Compliance became a popular concept in business and legal communities. Many countries have adopted laws, which deploy compliance philosophy. Many corporations have huge compliance departments. In the very same time, there is no universally acknowledged methodology what to consider compliance system or compliance as such. This problem extends far beyond borders of emerging markets being a global challenge for professional community. Compliance as professional occupation has to pass certain stages of development like internal audit did in early 2000s in order to form universally recognized standards.

Target #2: Next Generation of Compliance Professionals

Based on what we have discussed earlier on we came to another challenge, which is preparation of new generation of compliance professionals. Let’s take the following example. When employer hires a graduate from a law or medical school, he/she has a clue what knowledge and skills a graduate has. In case of hiring a young compliance professional, it is impossible to evaluate his/her academic proficiency as there are so many courses, trainings, academic programs which might not share even very basic compliance methodical approaches.     

Target #3: Think Globally Act Locally?

Implementation of corporate anticorruption program in the reality of emerging markets requires necessity to address both local legislation and extraterritorial laws as for instance UKBA and FCPA. Big multinationals also have piles of internal ethical rules to be deployed at their subsidiaries internationally. In addition, as previously mentioned we have been witnessing a boom of local compliance initiatives and sometimes new laws which companies have to follow as well. As a result, compliance officer faces the necessity to implement many requirements, which sometime might contradict to each other. This situation is depicted in one of the releases of Compliance Man illustrated series http://complianceinpostussr.com/compliance-man-of-integrity-corp-episode-4-it-is-about-tailoring/

To be effective and in order not to get lost in various laws, ethical concepts and compliance philosophies it is right time for professional community to agree on basic principles of corporate compliance system, which will be acknowledged as minimal standards by practitioners worldwide.       

Join me for the next episode of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov.

Learn more compliance tips from Tim Khasanov-Batirov at:

http://complianceinpostussr.com/& http://complianceinpostussr.com/blog/

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Welcome to Episode 7 of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov. The goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active FCPA enforcement. In next three minutes, we will target three specific matters that you might like to address in the course of implementation of your compliance program. Today we will focus on teamwork.

Target #1: Who is Your Team? While this question might sounds straightforward when we refer to organizational chart, the answer is not that obvious when we talk about the whole organization. Do you have supporters of Compliance movement among top managers? Do middle management and junior staff help you in promotion ethics? Do you have influencers among respected middle-level managers in your Compliance team now? Who should be in your Compliance dream team? If you have answers on these questions, it is much easier to plan efforts and evaluate rate of success of your ethics’ efforts in each department. Based on my experience even single individual who heads business function in the organization can block or in contrary stimulate efficient collaboration between all his subordinates and Compliance department.   

Target #2: Engagement of Personnel from Various Hierarchy Levels. Based on my experience it is essential to raise awareness and engage in respective ways personnel from all hierarchy levels. There are at least two reasons do that. The first one is that personnel tend to raise in the organization so your efforts in engagement each individual will be bringing positive impact on each stage of his or her career. The second reason is that managers (primarily at the senior level) from time to time are assigned with new areas of responsibility. Thus, if such a senior manager is your Compliance ambassador he will expand or strengthen Compliance philosophy at his new area of responsibility as well.         

Target #3: Why Things Might Not Work Well? Three killers of teamwork within Compliance department:

Absence of goals based on Key Performance Indicators for each individual;Duplication of functions among compliance folks;Absence of devotion to Ethics&Compliance in the team.Learn more compliance tips from Tim Khasanov-Batirov at:

http://complianceinpostussr.com/& http://complianceinpostussr.com/blog/

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Welcome to Episode 6 of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirovseries of podcasts. Our goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active FCPA enforcement. In this episode, we will target three specific matters that you might like to address in the course of implementation of your compliance program. Today we will focus on Due Diligence in high risk markets.

Learn more compliance tips from Tim Khasanov-Batirov at: 

http://complianceinpostussr.com/&http://complianceinpostussr.com/blog/

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Welcome to Episode 5 of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov.My goal is to highlight matters that should be on agenda of practitioners that deploy compliance programs in industries or countries of active FCPA enforcement. In each episode, I target three specific matters that you might like to address in the course of implementation of your compliance program. Today we will focus on compliance risks in Russia. 

Target #1: Compliance Program.

Russia is number six in FCPA countdown of all times. In practice it means that, this jurisdiction should get your special attention in the course of deploying corporate compliance program. Your company could face risks in many business areas. What would be the best way to find out if you are on the safe side?  I suggest you to do assessment of the corporate compliance program in Russia based on the DOJ’s guidance called Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.  The most effective way to do this exercise would be engagement of the outside counsel. While this tip might look obvious, I want to specifically mention the test, which should be addressed in order to get a full picture:

vThe international team from counsel side should consist of both US lawyers who have practical experience in FCPA matter along with Russian attorneys who would be able to tailor the US recommendations in accordance with Russian legislation.  

I will elaborate on importance of this test when we discuss the Target #3. 

Target #2: Risk Assessment & Risk Appetite.

The vital part of your efforts on global arena is FCPA risk assessment. There is no chance that any company would be able to spend millions of dollars spreading compliance resources on unnecessary or minor issues.   

In the very same time on practice, I have seen that sometimes company were not clear on particular risks they were trying to mitigate. In plain language, they were just wasting compliance resources by doing something for the sake of doing something. To be effective on a high-risk market you should define priorities, the most risky areas that you would like to address. As a second step, the company should define the risk appetite, or so to say, the internal standard on risk acceptance, that company agrees to take.                                

Target #3: Legislation.

While deploying international antibribery standards in the branch of your organization in Moscow do not ignore local laws.  The reasons are the following:

1. Sometimes Russian anticorruption legislation might contain provisions that in some instances are more restrictive than FCPA (for example, local requirement in certain cases to notify the former employer of your newly hired ex-governmental official); 2. Certain FCPA principles might collude local laws (for example, due diligence of your business partner should be construed not to breach Russian antitrust legislation); 3. Some pieces of legislation should be reviewed carefully prior to deployment of the compliance instruments (for example, Russian data privacy laws should be analyzed prior to launch of whistleblower line).             

Join us for the next episode of Compliance Man Chooses the Target with Tim Khasanov-Batirov. 

Learn more compliance tips from Tim Khasanov-Batirov at: 

http://complianceinpostussr.com/&http://complianceinpostussr.com/blog/

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