Manatt’s Jacqueline Wolff, a partner in the firm’s investigations and white collar defense practice, spoke with the Anti-Corruption Report on compliance risk assessments and how companies can most effectively assemble a risk assessment team.
According to the Anti-Corruption Report, the Department of Justice recently issued new guidance, titled Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, and discussed different types of assessments a company could undertake.
Wolff said that executives should “consider with whom employees will feel most comfortable” when assembling from the legal and compliance departments at their companies.
“If people see legal coming and scatter, it is best not to include legal on the team,” she said. “On the other hand, if people see HR as safe and comforting, it might make sense to include someone from HR.”
Wolff also said that a risk assessment process “will not be effective” in mapping risk without cooperation from people in the business.
“If the businesspeople don’t trust the process or are leery of compliance, it is going to be difficult to learn much and the risk assessment is going to be cloudy,” she said.