We Help Companies Uncover and Remedy Compliance Issues
Is your company in compliance with its statutory and regulatory compliance obligations? Are you sure? From data protection regulations to anti-fraud laws, companies in all industries have compliance burdens, and companies that fail to meet these burdens can face severe adverse consequences.
If any aspect of your company’s operations are noncompliant with applicable laws or regulations, this is something you need to know. Ideally, you need to know it in time to remedy the issue before the government comes calling. Once a state or federal agency opens an investigation, the options for avoiding penalties become more limited—although it is still possible to avoid penalties in many cases.
Whether you are seeking to avoid a government investigation or you need to know what is at stake in an active government inquiry, the first step is to understand the state of your company’s compliance efforts. Are they effectively currently? Have they been effective in the past? Does your company have the documentation it needs to withstand scrutiny from the government? These are all questions that company leaders cannot afford to leave unanswered.
Corporate Compliance Consultants and Investigators
We help companies assess, establish, maintain, and demonstrate compliance. To do so, we rely on the insights gained from experience in both the public and private sectors. Our corporate compliance consultants and investigators have vast backgrounds in compliance, including prior experience as high-ranking agents with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (DHHS OIG), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations (IRS CI).
Understanding your company’s compliance obligations is not easy. Maintaining and proving compliance can be just as difficult. This is where we come in. Our former federal agents can conduct a thorough assessment of your company’s compliance program, identify any flaws or deficiencies, develop a plan to remedy those flaws or deficiencies, and help ensure that your company is fully prepared to deal with the government if and when necessary.
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Our Corporate Compliance Investigation Capabilities
At Corporate Investigation Consulting, we provide a comprehensive suite of services designed specifically for companies that have significant compliance burdens. While we can conduct corporate compliance investigations on an ad hoc basis when necessary, we work closely with many of our clients on an ongoing basis.
Our former federal agents have experience in virtually all areas of compliance. This includes generally applicable compliance obligations such as those that apply to consumer information and securities, as well as industry-specific compliance obligations such as those that apply to entities in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. Our specific capabilities include:
Internal Corporate Compliance Investigations
Internal corporate compliance investigations are our bread and butter. As former federal agents, our consultants are well versed in sophisticated investigative techniques, and they blend this knowledge with their compliance expertise to help companies efficiently gather critical intelligence. We can help you understand how well your company’s compliance program is working, we can help you understand what issues you need to address, and we can help you define and execute a compliance strategy for moving forward.
Document Preservation Enforcement
When conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation, it is imperative to ensure the preservation of all relevant documents. Unfortunately, employees who are concerned about their conduct may attempt to delete or destroy relevant documents that they know present risks for the company and/or themselves. When conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation, we can assist with the enforcement of your company’s document preservation policies to help ensure that no misconduct goes uncovered.
Hard Drive and Device Imaging
Hard drive imaging ensures that operating systems and files remain secure and unadulterated in their original form. Device imaging serves a similar purpose with respect to individual employees’ laptops, tablets, and phones. Imaging can be a crucial step when preparing to conduct a corporate compliance investigation, as it ensures that a complete and accurate record of the company’s data existing prior to the investigation remains intact.
Unauthorized Computer Use Disputes
Employees who are implicated in a company’s compliance failures may try to blame their apparent involvement on unauthorized use of their devices. For disciplinary and other purposes, companies need to know whether these types of claims are legitimate or not. We can use digital forensics to examine employees’ claims of unauthorized computer use and conclusively establish who played a role in any compliance failures.
Intellectual Property Disputes
Compliance with intellectual property (IP) licenses is another key area of concern for businesses of all types. If your company is facing breach allegations, you need to be able to make informed decisions based on reliable data. We use our digital forensics tools and investigative expertise to assess companies’ risk exposure in intellectual property disputes involving software and other licensed IP assets.
Restoration of Files
If an employee or vendor has maliciously or inadvertently deleted files your company needs to assess or demonstrate compliance, we can assist with file restoration. We can restore hidden, lost, or deleted files, and we can determine when and where files were hidden, lost, or deleted if necessary.
Internet History Tracking
Internet history can be relevant to a variety of compliance-related concerns. If you need to know what websites your company’s employees have visited, with whom your company’s employees have communicated online, or who is responsible for sharing sensitive or proprietary information outside your company’s walls, we can use internet history tracking (among other tools) to secure the intelligence your company needs to take appropriate action.
Email Recovery
In addition to assisting with the recovery of computer files, we can also assist with email recovery. Again, when conducting a corporate compliance investigation, having all relevant information is crucial. If any employees have deleted emails that are relevant to your company’s compliance efforts or its response to allegations of compliance deficiencies, recovering these emails will be a key step in the investigative process.
Witness Testimony and Litigation Support
Our consultants are available to provide expert witness testimony in compliance-related matters. We can also provide litigation support for private lawsuits and government enforcement proceedings. Our former federal agents have substantial experience on both sides of civil and criminal matters, and we can provide invaluable insights for defending against allegations of noncompliance.
We Help Companies Avoid Unnecessary Consequences
If your company is currently facing a government investigation pertaining to its compliance obligations, you need to know what (if anything) government agents are going to find. This involves conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation that is unbiased and not susceptible to conflicts. Our former federal agents can get to work right away assessing your company’s compliance efforts, and we can help your company proactively identify and address any issues that the government is likely to uncover. This type of proactive approach is essential for mitigating the risks of a government compliance investigation, as it allows companies to both (a) explain why compliance failures occurred despite their best efforts, and (b) show that they are already working toward remedying the problem.
FAQs: Conducting an Internal Corporate Compliance Investigation
What are the benefits of conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation?
Conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation can serve several important purposes. Not only does conducting these investigations on a regular basis allow companies to uncover compliance issues before they lead to enforcement action, but it also helps companies show their good-faith efforts to maintain compliance. Investigating also allows companies to determine which individual employees or departments are responsible for compliance failures so that they can take appropriate remedial and/or disciplinary action.
When is the best time to conduct an internal corporate compliance investigation?
Companies should conduct internal corporate compliance investigations (or “audits”) on a regular basis (at least once per year). Companies should also conduct ad hoc investigations when facing scrutiny from government authorities.
Are there risks associated with conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation?
One of the biggest risks associated with conducting an internal corporate compliance investigation is the risk that the investigation will not be sufficiently comprehensive. If an investigation ignores or overlooks key data sources, then its results will not be reliable. This is among several reasons why it is critical for companies to engage experienced consultants to conduct their compliance investigations.
Can companies use internal personnel to conduct corporate compliance investigations?
Using internal personnel to conduct corporate compliance investigations is inadvisable for a couple of key reasons. First, most companies simply do not have personnel who have the experience and skills required to investigate effectively. Second, involving internal personnel also introduces the risk that those who are conducting the investigation will have compromised interests—whether because they are afraid of uncovering corporate wrongdoing or because they themselves are responsible for the company’s compliance failures.
Speak with a Former Federal Agent about Your Company’s Compliance Needs
For more information about our corporate compliance investigation services, please contact us today. Call 866-352-9324 or get in touch with us online to schedule a confidential consultation.