To ensure the independence and authority of compliance officers, in all of the Department of Justice’s corporate resolutions regarding AML compliance violations—including guilty pleas, deferred prosecution agreements or non-prosecution agreements—it will now consider requiring both chief executive officers and chief compliance officers to certify that a company has remedied the situation, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite announced during an industry event today.
In addition, Polite said that in certain resolutions where companies are required to provide annual self-reports to the DOJ on the state of their compliance programs, “we will consider requiring the CEO and the CCO to certify that all compliance reports submitted during the term of the resolution are true, that they are accurate, that they are complete.”
“By taking this step, we are ensuring that chief compliance officers receive all relevant compliance-related info and can voice any concerns they may have prior to certification,” Polite said. “Today’s announcement is not punitive in nature—it is intended to empower compliance professionals to have the data, to have the access, to have the voice and the stature in your organizations to ensure that [the DOJ understands] that your company has an ethical and compliance-focused environment.”
