DOJ issues updated guidance on corporate compliance programs

On June 1st, the DOJ updated its April 2019 guidance with respect to efficacy in corporate compliance programs. Our overview of the updated guidance includes key themes, focus areas for the DOJ and for corporate compliance personnel, and inquiries to test the effectiveness of a corporate compliance program.

Key themes in revisions:

• Increased sensitivity by prosecutors to a company’s particular circumstances
• Increased consideration for temporal evaluation of a company’s compliance program (why has it evolved?)
• Allocating adequate resources to a company’s compliance organization
• Increased emphasis on using data for monitoring controls and tracking overall effectiveness of the compliance program
  • Importantly, the DOJ is looking at a company’s use of data across all operations and how it is considered in a company’s risk assessment
  • Consideration for any “impediments” to obtaining data including foreign mandates such as GDPR