COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS MUST CHANGE

Recent corporate fraud prosecutions show that many major companies' compliance programs, as presently structured, are failing. Respected and well-intentioned corporate executives are encountering prosecutors who are investigating conduct once thought to constitute mere civil violations. The lapse in effective compliance programs can often be attributed to two key issues for which compliance officers cannot be faulted. First, compliance programs operating strictly with internal resources are leaving significant gaps in compliance coverage. Often, corporate management may not realize an ethical question exists because they are following long-time company or industry practices or they are simply too close to the issue. Second, and importantly, corporations are making business decisions without any real appreciation of the prosecutor's perspective of the business world.

COMPANIES MUST PROACTIVELY DETECT AND PREVENT LEGAL VIOLATIONS

Prosecutors and management view business issues differently. While business decisions require close judgment calls, prosecutors see the world as black and white. Corporate counsel are frequently asked to evaluate whether a business practice is "defensible." In order to avoid the multi-million dollar consequences of a criminal investigation, businesses must also consider whether the practice, even if defensible, runs too great a risk the prosecutor will see it differently.

THE PROSECUTOR'S PERSPECTIVE IS VITAL

Recognizing that prosecutors and federal agents look at issues differently than the business community, The PREVENE Group employs former federal prosecutors and agents to enhance companies' corporate governance and compliance programs. With years of investigative experience, The PREVENE Group brings the knowledge, insight and ability to look at business decisions from the prosecutor's perspective and to fully enable a compliance program to identify, and stop, potential criminal conduct before it starts.

 

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The corporate world is spending literally hundreds of millions of extra dollars as a result of the fall-out of Enron, Worldcom and the whole corporate fraud scandal. However, notwithstanding the resources companies have expended to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and strengthen their compliance and governance programs, corporate fraud indictments are still increasing.

We started The PREVENE Group because with almost every corporate fraud indictment, the defendants’ refrain is the same-- “We had no idea what we were doing could be considered criminal.” The business community simply has little understanding of how prosecutors think. Yet, in today’s prosecutorial environment, the only way for companies to avoid crossing paths with the prosecutors, is to know in advance what direction the prosecutors are heading.

The PREVENE Group can do many things to help strengthen your company’s compliance program, but importantly, we do it all with an understanding of how a corporate fraud prosecutor thinks. The only people who truly know how prosecutors view business conduct, are other prosecutors. Therefore, we utilize former federal prosecutors and former federal agents to work with companies’ compliance officers to evaluate business practices and to anticipate and prevent employee misconduct.

Having spent over twenty years investigating large corporate fraud cases, we have seen the gap left in corporate compliance programs missing the insight of the prosecutor’s perspective. We would very much like the opportunity to demonstrate for you how important this perspective truly is for keeping a company out of the web of corporate fraud.
 

© 2009 The Prevene Group LLC

The Prevene Group