Over the past few months, the OIG shorts series focused on structuring and implementing a comprehensive and effective ethics and compliance program. Many times, this requires a mindset shift from a checking-the-box mentality to a wholistic approach in which everyone feels they have an important role to play. Nowhere is this more apropos than in the area of cybersecurity including developing a data security strategy and maintaining an effective incident response plan.
Continue Reading Ethics & Compliance: Let’s Talk About Cybersecurity

This blog was originally published in Law360.

On November 18, 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila sentenced Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes to over 11 years in prison for fraud. Judge Davila, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said the harsh sentence was justified because investors in Silicon Valley startup companies should be able to expect to take “risks free from fraud.” In explaining his sentence, Judge Davila painted a vivid picture of a culture of fraud inside Theranos, driven by Ms. Holmes’s “hubris” and “loss of a moral compass.”[1] From…
Continue Reading When Organizational Culture Goes Wrong: A Federal Judge’s Vivid Description of Cultural Decay Inside Theranos

There is a compliance obligation that is sometimes honored in the breach: regular compliance self‐assessments. In this edition of OIG Shorts, the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Organizational Integrity Group explains why such self-assessments are valuable and the reasons to make a timely self-assessment part of your organization’s New Year’s resolutions.

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Many business leaders still view Ethics & Compliance as a cost center rather than a cost reducer. This thinking can create quite the hurdle for CECOs looking to secure a meaningful E&C budget. In this edition of OIG Shorts, the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Organizational Integrity Group offers up some ammo to CECOs for their internal budgeting discussions.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Ethics & Compliance Program Funding

Previous installments of OIG Shorts addressed practical approaches to creating a more effective Ethics & Compliance program. The sixth installment of OIG Shorts focuses on the importance of measuring the efficacy of the program.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Measuring The Efficacy Of Your Ethics & Compliance Program  

Discipline is a complicated thing. Ask any parent. The fifth installment of OIG Shorts focuses on discipline as a core component of an effective Ethics & Compliance Program.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Let’s Be Disciplined About Discipline

In our decades working with complex organizations on their Ethics & Compliance (E&C) programs, my colleagues and I have seen a wide variety of structures. While we readily concede there is no one way to structure an E&C program, we have come to believe there are a few traits common to the best programs. Our fourth installment of OIG Shorts reviews traits common to the best programs.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Structure Matters

Welcome to our third installment of OIG Shorts. Ethics & Compliance programs that buck up against an employee’s reality—whether that reality is real or perceived—have less chance of succeeding. In this third edition of our OIG Shorts series, we explore the importance of developing what we call Reality-Based E&C Programs.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Reality Based Ethics & Compliance Programs

Welcome back to our second installment of OIG Shorts. In this post, the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Organizational Integrity Group focuses on the difference between Checking Boxes and Solving Problems from an Ethics & Compliance (E&C) perspective.

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Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Everyone Benefits When An Ethics & Compliance Program Is Integrated Throughout An Organization

Over the course of the next few months, the Sheppard Mullin Organizational Integrity Group will be exploring a number of complex compliance matters in a series we call “OIG Shorts.”…
Continue Reading Organizational Integrity Shorts: Everyone Benefits When An Ethics & Compliance Program Is Integrated Throughout An Organization

The U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) thinks the FBI and other agencies are not doing enough to address the espionage threat on U.S. university campuses. It issued a report, “Enforcement Agencies Should Better Leverage Information to Target Efforts Involving U.S. Universities” on June 14, 2022, urging the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Commerce to step up their outreach efforts to address the threat. Commerce, DHS, and FBI have all concurred with GAO’s recommendations. As a result, U.S. colleges and universities to face yet another organizational risk: an increase in campuses visits by export…
Continue Reading U.S. Government Pursues More Aggressive Action to Curb Espionage at Universities

So, nearly 2 years ago your organization applied for and received COVID-relief funds. The decision was not an easy one. On the one hand, government largesse invariably comes with strings and uncertainties, i.e., risk. On the other hand, your organization faced an unprecedented triple threat crisis: financial, operational, and health. Consumer spending plummeted and its consequences rippled through the economy threatening to trigger a global financial meltdown. You could not possibly have forecast how the global pandemic would affect your organization.
Continue Reading A Short Guide To Responding To Employee Concerns About Your Organization’s Actions And Its Mission, Vision, And Values

The inattention some companies pay to their ethics and compliance program never ceases to surprise us. You’d think the frequency of DOJ press releases and prosecutions holding companies accountable for employee wrongdoing would be enough to scare any business into directing more resources at prevention. But alas, many businesses, often over the protestations of their under-resourced Chief Ethics and Compliance Officers (CECOs), continue to think they can get by with a minimalist approach to ethics and compliance. Our experience suggests otherwise.
Continue Reading DOJ’s Renewed Focus On Corporate Ethics & Compliance Programs Highlights Importance Of Organizational Integrity