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Regulatory compliance, a good business practice

| News | Corporate Compliance

Benjamín Prieto participates in the conference on compliance organized by Las Provincias

Compliance is, in a broad sense, an instrument by which a culture based on strict compliance with the law and certain ethical principles (such as transparency, honesty and zero tolerance of corruption) is established in companies, with the objective that these principles make up the true DNA of the company and guide all its business performance.

In short, it consists of creating regulatory compliance programs in companies aimed at prioritizing, over and above the business, strict compliance with the law, based on an ethical, honest and transparent behaviour of all company members (management team and employees) as well as its collaborators.

These questions were put on the table at the Compliance breakfast organised by the Las Provincias newspaper and attended by Andersen Tax & Legal partner and head of the Litigation department in the Valencia office, Benjamín Prieto.

During the conference, the Andersen Tax & Legal partner stated that "one of the fears of companies is believing that they are putting spokes in the wheels and it isn’t so. The risks identified with compliance are not sectoral but cross-cutting, and what we need to do is put it down in black and white. He explained that the legislator "has chosen a closed catalogue of crimes for these cases, which are barely thirty and do not fit the real needs". "This will be corrected and brought into line with what is in fact true, since criminal compliance punishes what was previously done through administrative channels. In addition, corporate and worker crimes have been left out.

The figure of the' compliance officer' was also discussed, responsible for monitoring and supervising the effectiveness and operability of the crime prevention model. At this point, Prieto commented that "in the United States this position has a very high level, behind only the CEO.

Finally, the partner of Andersen Tax & Legal pointed out that the benefit of compliance "is to be exempt from criminal liability and to be able to know the operation of the company much better". On the other hand, he added not implementing it means staying out of the market, especially in medium-sized companies, because they transfer the risks to their customers or suppliers and therefore they won’t contract them. In addition, authorities have taken action so that it is considered a factor to be taken into account in tendering".

 

For further information, please contact:

Benjamín J. Prieto Clar

benjamin.prieto@AndersenTaxLegal.es

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