Without a robust ethical platform, corporate compliance is a post-facto and tactical exercise. In a post-Dodd-Frank environment, the stakes are too high for tactics. Companies need ethical strategists. Any corporate leader who disagrees need only consider that, with the new SEC whistleblower provisions enacted by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the federal government has deputized virtually every company employee, vendor, customer (and their second cousins) to serve as their eyes and ears. The scrutiny is, and will grow far more, intense.
It’s time to develop a new paradigm for corporate character. This is particularly important in an economic downturn, when executives send messages about profit-or-else and fears about job security can supersede ethical decision-making. It’s time for corporate leaders, in-house and outside counsel included, to make principles like doing the right thing and fulfilling responsibilities to investors, customers, and employees a fundamental part of doing business. Given the unprecedented attention the whistleblower provisions of Dodd-Frank have generated, this is a moment of real opportunity.
Beyond Cops and Robbers
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