Yesterday we participated in a workshop at the 2011 SCCE Utilities & Energy Compliance and Ethics Conference with Scott Lane, President of the Red Flag Group. In his presentation, he discussed a White Paper that he and his colleague James Walton recently released entitled, “Best Practices in Conducting FCPA /Anti-bribery Due Diligence”. We went back and read the article and found it to be an excellent resource for many questions relating to due diligence as required by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) or any best practices anti-bribery and anti-corruption program. Today we will focus on the question of how often should a company perform due diligence on its foreign business relationships.
Lane and Walton begin by noting that due diligence is very hard to keep consistent as no two are ever the same. They believe it is important to keep a close watch on information sources, to search for improved providers, and ensure that the information you are looking at is useful for the business needs. The specific time frame for ongoing due diligence depends on the risk profile of a company’s foreign business relationship. They provide three benchmarks: (1) annually; (2) biennially; or (3) at contract renewal.
Please see full publication below for more information.
