One of the key things the Department of Justice (DOJ) has consistently communicated is the importance of operationalizing rather than having a paper compliance program in place. The Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (Evaluation) made clear that to receive credit in any Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action, you must fully operationalize your compliance program in the remediation phase.

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One of the key things the Department of Justice (DOJ) has consistently communicated is the importance of operationalizing rather than having a paper compliance program in place. The Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (Evaluation) made clear that to receive credit in any Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement action, you must fully operationalize your compliance program in the remediation phase.

All of this was driven home to me in an article I read in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), entitled “Disruptive Innovation?”, by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor and Rory McDonald. The authors were concerned that many of the commentary around the phrase ‘disruptive innovation’ were “in danger of losing their usefulness because they’ve become misunderstood and misapplied.” To answer this critique, the authors revisited the central tenets to the theory and how it had developed over the past 20 years. In doing so they detailed three key elements of disruption theory, which I have adapted to the compliance context. See less -