Compliance, Commitment To Recover Corporate Values

One of the best tools available for organizations to maintain and improve their reputation is through fulfillment of their own policies and guidelines. Generally known as Compliance, it is a concept incorporated nowadays in organizations that seek to comply with the law and mitigate possible risks due to failures or lack of knowledge of the members of the organization. Compliance has been understood as a set of actions, guidelines and best practices, grounded in local and international legislation and principles that govern the organizational culture. Compliance also helps organizations avoiding losses, fraud, abuse, discrimination and other practices, which can place the organization at risk of fines, operational closures and even sanctions to their representatives, damage to their reputation among others.

This concept has been confused many times as a specific function of the legal areas outside other functions of the organization. It is necessary to understand, however, that Compliance is not an area or department that deals with legal matters isolated from the rest of the company. This function should be cross - functional to all areas of the organization and led by specialized areas or persons generally identified as compliance officers. For example, the officer who must ensure compliance with regulations on money laundering or financing of terrorism or the personal data protection officer, responsible for ensuring the protection of personal information in the organization's databases. Persons who act as compliance officers must have the support of senior management of the organization and have autonomy for their investigations and reports.

For practical purposes and aiming to get an adequate Compliance program, we can divide the Compliance creation process into four stages. First, there must be a diagnosis of the possible risks to which the company could be exposed. Second, develop and implement specific controls to target those risks, along with guidelines and policies harmonized with the corporate purpose and laws that affect the organization and its culture. This may include implementing due diligence processes of third parties, a whistleblower line or other mechanisms allowing for anonymous reports of conducts that violate the corporate policies, policies on offering, providing or accepting gifts and business courtesies, political contributions, donations, managing relationships with government officials, reporting of conflicts of...