According to the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI), ethics and compliance programs should not be “check the box programs” that solely conform to minimum regulatory or judicial requirements precisely because these requirements are too limited in scope and will take more effort to maintain relevance within the organization. Moreover, with regulatory enforcement and public scrutiny increasing globally, and the rising cost of misconduct, organizations need to know (and we are sure, want to know) how to address issues that may arise in the most cost-effective manner. This second report is a followup to our March story on the draft version of the Blue Ribbon report and provides action items for organizations wishing to improve their E&C programs.
In March, we reported on the efforts of the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI) to usher in improvements in compliance standards across industries. ECI convened a panel of ethics and compliance (E&C) practitioners, former enforcement officials, academics, as well as white collar and whistleblower attorneys to take on the task of evaluating the best programs and creating a framework for companies to emulate. The “Blue Ribbon Panel,” as it was named, then developed Principles & Practices of HighQuality Ethics & Compliance Programs, which ECI claims is the first report of its kind to provide a comprehensive framework for creating high-quality E&C programs. Such programs, ECI said in a blog post, go beyond regulatory requirements in establishing and maintaining a high standard of integrity that “becomes part of the DNA of the organization.”
Read Full Article in the October 2016 Issue of Life Science Compliance Update