REFLECTIONS-22 SEPTEMBER 2021

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF LEGAL & TECH EVENTS GLOBALLY | September 22, 2021

THIS IS REFLECTIONS, our weekly roundup of events in the legal and technology sector, covering various topics and interesting learning points for today’s professionals. If you couldn’t make an event, don’t worry, we probably made it and have all the juicy scoop for your reading pleasure and learning.

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EVENT ONE

Topic: Bribery and corruption: the winds of change confirmation.

INTRODUCTION

The meeting commenced at 4:00pm. Welcome address was given by Richard M. Plansky who introduced himself as the Regional Manager Director at KROLL and went on to introduce the speakers in the panel in person of Howard Cooper and Zoe Newman, the managing directors & global co-heads of financial investigation at KROLL;  Rasoul Golparvar, Senior Director at KROLL and Narguiz Birk-Petersen, Vice President, Regional general counsel, growth and emerging markets, TAKEDA.

KROLL SURVEY ANALYSIS

Richard M. Plansky who moderated the event, proceeded to give a comprehensive analysis of a survey conducted by KROLL to key senior decision-makers for risk strategy, including general counsel, chief compliance officers, chief financial officers and CEO at corporate firms about their opinion on the usage of proactive data analytics to detect risk and the antibribery/corruption controls that were deployed in detecting and preventing high risk activities within their organization. He mentioned that half of the result of the survey were positive while the other half was a negative response.

He proceeded to ask for the views of the speakers concerning the survey analysis to which Howard Cooper mentioned that he was pleasantly surprised at the considerable percentage of organizations who were deploying proactive data analytics in detect high risk. He however mentioned that the best route to take in that regard was to focus more on monitoring change through effective communication as this would increase the organization’s ability to access reliable data internally. He further highlighted the steps in getting these done, namely;

1. Ascertain what change/risk is evident through effective communication.

2. Identify the sources of the risk.

3. Continuously monitor the impact as risks are not static.

Richard Plansky further asked for the opinion of the speakers on how effective data analysis in a proactive way to detect bribery and corruption was in commensuration with the risk accompanied. Rasoul Golparvar gave his view on it and mentioned data analytics required a lot of the following;

1. Effective Planning

2. Efficient people

3. Cognitive process

4. Technology

He stated that the common mistakes most organization make is using data for investigative purposes rather than for monitoring thereby missing out on keys aspects that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Zoe Newman spoke on the root cause of non-compliance of organizational policies put in place to curb bribery and corruption. She mentioned that the main cause of non-compliance stemmed from the foreign subsidiaries of the large organizations who are fully integrated into the company’s culture. She iterated that a company, no matter how strong, can survive where there is a strong non-compliance of the regulations of the company and also where there is no deployment of active measures to see those regulations implemented.

Narguiz Birk-Petersen added that proper compliance can be achieved where there is a direct communication about the compliance policies in all levels of the company/organizations.

Conclusively, the measures of monitoring compliance was discussed. Rasoul Golparvar opined that the use of Artificial Intelligence would be the way forward in monitoring compliance in an organization even though it comes with the attendant Fear of humans being replaced by Artificial Intelligence, the concentration should be centered on the advantages of Artificial Intelligence and what it can achieve rather than its pitfalls. Questions were attendee to and with that the webinar ended at 5:00pm.