NYU Law’s Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE)
March 25, 2022
I have been fortunate in my career to have served as a prosecutor, as a defense attorney, and to work as a chief compliance officer of a Fortune 500 company. The detection and prevention of criminal conduct has been a constant across these three roles. Perhaps the most challenging of the three roles has been serving in compliance.
by Karin Portlock and Jabari Julien
Recent years have seen an uptick in corporate internal investigations of discrimination and harassment on the basis of protected characteristics and increased attention to corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and practices. When companies look for teams to investigate these issues, they should prioritize diverse teams, which perform better than homogeneous ones in core investigative functions and drive better and more thorough results for clients.
by Helena K. Grannis and Jeff J. Shim
Robust interest in ESG-related matters and growing demands from shareholders, regulators and various other stakeholders during 2021 have put management and boards of public companies firmly on notice that strong ESG policies, practices and commitments are key components to long-term organizational success, business resiliency and value creation.
by Jean Lee
The SEC is considering a new rule that would require businesses to disclose more information about the diversity within their companies, a promising sign that corporate America is embracing transparency and accountability when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Better data is an essential step towards progress on DEI efforts at disclosing companies—a philosophy that drives the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s (MCCA) work and the release of our new Diversity Scorecard.
by Rick Fischer, Nancy Thomas, and Jeremy Mandell
The Department of Justice (DOJ) joined other federal agencies in announcing an increased focus on fair lending issues. On October 22, 2021, DOJ announced a new initiative to crack down on “modern-day” redlining. DOJ is partnering with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in this initiative, which will also involve increased coordination among the three agencies, federal prosecutors, and state attorneys general. To kick off the new initiative, DOJ, the CFPB, the OCC, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee announced a consent order against Trustmark National Bank for alleged illegal redlining.
by David Stein, Eric Mogilnicki, Jeremy Newell, Michael Nonaka, and Andrew Smith
On Wednesday, September 1, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau”) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking for proposed rules that would require creditors to collect and report data about lending to small businesses, focusing on minority-owned and women-owned small businesses (the “Proposed Rules”). The Bureau issued the Proposed Rules to implement Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2011. Section 1071 amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) to create a mandatory data collection and reporting requirement for business lending to promote the ECOA’s fair lending objectives. In July 2021, the Bureau committed to issuing the Proposed Rules no later than September 30, 2021, as part of a settlement agreement reached in a lawsuit brought by consumer advocates in 2019 regarding the delayed issuance of rules to implement Section 1071. Comments on the Proposed Rules are due 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.
by Martin Lipton, Steven Rosenblum, Karessa Cain, and Hannah Clark
The ever-evolving challenges facing corporate boards prompt periodic updates to a snapshot of what is expected from the board of directors of a public company—not just the legal rules, or the principles published by institutional investors and various corporate and investor associations, but also the aspirational “best practices” that have come to have equivalent influence on board and company behavior. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic and social turbulence, combined with the wide embrace of ESG, stakeholder governance and sustainable long-term investment strategies, are propelling a decisive inflection point in the responsibilities of boards of directors. The 2016 and 2020 statements of corporate purpose by the World Economic Forum and the 2019 embrace of stakeholder capitalism by the Business Roundtable, together with current statements of policy by most of the leading corporations, institutional investors, asset managers and their organizations, as well as governments and regulators in and outside the United States, lead us to summarize the purpose of the corporation:
by Avi Gesser, Anna R. Gressel, and Parker C. Eudy
This post is Part IV of a five-part series by the authors on The Future of AI Regulation. For Part I, discussing U.S. banking regulators’ recent request for information regarding the use of AI by financial institutions click here. For Part II, outlining key features of the EU’s draft AI legislation, click here. For Part III, discussing new obligations for companies under the EU’s draft AI legislation, click here.
In this installment, we discuss the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recent blog post entitled “Aiming for truth, fairness, and equity in your company’s use of AI,” which was released on April 19, 2021.
by Arthur S. Long and Elizabeth A. Ising
On February 26, 2021, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) issued a Supervision and Regulation letter[1] containing its final supervisory guidance (Effectiveness Guidance) on the effectiveness of a banking institution’s board of directors. The Guidance applies to bank holding companies and savings-and-loan holding companies with total consolidated assets of $100 billion or more, with the exception of intermediate holding companies of foreign banking organizations (IHCs). A separate Supervision and Regulation letter issued the same day revised twelve prior Supervision and Regulation letters touching on the subject and made nine additional prior Supervision and Regulation letters inactive.[2] Continue reading
by Amanda J. Raines and Paul J. Fishman
During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Garland skillfully avoided taking firm positions on a variety of topics—which made his statements regarding criminal justice reform and the effect of systemic racism and implicit bias in the justice system particularly notable. Criminal justice reform came up several times, specifically in questions by Ranking Member Grassley (R-IA) and Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Pat Leahy (D-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Tom Cotton (R-AK), and John Kennedy (R-LA). In each instance, Judge Garland was unequivocal that the issue is a priority for him and the President.