CW National Notebook: Compliance professionals need guaranteed job protections

Too often, compliance professionals do their jobs only to receive a pink slip at the end. Panelists at Compliance Week’s 20th Anniversary National Conference in Washington, D.C. this week said compliance professionals need regular access and reporting lines to CEOs and boards of directors, and to feel free to speak truth to power.

During a panel about corporate sentencing guidelines that have been in place for 30 years, panelists argued that even though most companies have active compliance programs, and they’ve been built voluntarily, more work needs to be done. And it’s not just with job protections. They also argued that the Department of Justice should provide more detail in its declinations, which are meant to inform the public about cases that would have been prosecuted, but were not pursued because a company voluntarily disclosed its issues or implemented appropriate remediation.

The discussion around compliance and boards of directors is a regular and continuing topic at Compliance Week events, where panelists and attendees generally speak under the Chatham House Rule to encourage openness and sharing of ideas. Companies are increasingly wrestling with internal issues about how to evolve compliance, ethics ,and legal programs amid increased pressure to hold corporate leadership accountable over scandals.