Keep ahead of fluid global anti-fraud regulations

The compliance landscape forever shifted after the Enron and WorldCom debacles, among others. Don’t let accelerating corporate governance changes leave your organization and clients unprotected. Here’s how anti-fraud regulations evolve in phases around the globe, a review of compliance history plus practical action plans.

Kumar is a business owner keen on expanding his enterprise. He has his eye on acquiring another company in his field, Previo Industries. Kumar didn’t chance upon Previo — he’s already familiar with it from his experience a few years back when he worked for another company, Intrazio Inc., that also considered acquiring Previo. (All names have been changed.) At that time, Intrazio ran proper due diligence checks on Previo. Kumar was privy to the process and results. In the end, the company decided to change direction and didn’t acquire Previo.

But now, Kumar is eager to bring Previo into his growing company. Because he’s already familiar with Previo’s business and its processes, Kumar tells his analysts to bypass their regular scrutinization to try to speed up the process and grab Previo before his rivals do.

However, shortly after the acquisition, Kumar realizes he’s made a critical mistake. His team takes a closer look at Previo’s inner workings and discovers that the company had been convicted of some corruption violations, which it hadn’t remediated. Of course, Kumar hadn’t anticipated this, but he should’ve known better. Laws, regulations, enforcement measures and penalties are always changing. Kumar shouldn’t have relied on the due diligence Intrazio conducted a few years earlier as a bulletproof indicator of Previo’s present standing.