Companies today are operating in an environment of ever-increasing laws and regulations, including Anti-Corruption (FCPA), Anti-Fraud, Antitrust, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Dodd-Frank. Failure to adhere to these laws and regulations may subject them and their employees, officers and directors to substantial fines, penalties, and consequences, including imprisonment, particularly given the heightened level of scrutiny by regulators such as the US Department of Justice, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the UK Serious Fraud Office and the UK Ministry of Justice.

Various US and international laws provide companies with a defense or an opportunity to mitigate fines and penalties for violations of law if they have an effective corporate compliance program in place. MDO Partners has extensive experience in developing effective compliance programs for Fortune 500, private and international companies in various industries. The goal of such programs is to ensure compliance with applicable laws and detect and prevent criminal conduct by a company’s employees, consultants and agents thereby reducing the risk of violating the law.

Further, if a violation of law does occur, an effective compliance program is designed to provide a basis for demonstrating to regulators that such violation was a result of unauthorized individual action and not corporate acquiescence.

An effective corporate compliance program consists of various elements, including (i) Ethical Culture; (ii) Risk Assessments; (iii) Policies and Procedures; (iv) Training and Communication; (v) Reporting and Investigations and (vi) Monitoring and Auditing. Regulators have determined that a one-size-fits-all compliance program or a mere “paper program” is ineffective and insufficient for companies to receive the benefits afforded for establishing compliance programs. As such, it is important to ensure that each of the compliance program elements is properly tailored and implemented to suit each company’s particular business and that such elements are regularly updated to address changes in an organization’s governance, operations and regulations.

MDO Partners works with clients to create, modify and implement effective compliance programs that help ensure each of the program elements are adequately addressed in order to (i) facilitate compliance with applicable law and reduce the risk of violations; (ii) provide a stronger defense against regulatory enforcement actions for any such violations; and (iii) strengthen shareholder, customer and public confidence, trust and loyalty.

Our experience with global compliance, include domestic and international matters in the following foreign countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom. We have also established strong relationships with local counsel in each of the above countries to assist with relevant local issues as they arise in relevant matters.