(20)CORPORATE COMPLIANCE: CORPORATE AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS

摘要

A corporation's business conduct continues to be scrutinized like never before. This scrutiny comes from shareholders, the government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector, all demanding compliance and more accountability. These demands for compliance and accountability have led many corporations to perform a variety of internal audits and investigations beyond financial audits, such as environmental audits, human resources audits, and ethics or corruption investigations.1 As a recent high-profile example, in the wake of the college admissions bribery scandal, many colleges and universities across America have deliberately chosen to conduct internal investigations specifically focused on their admissions practices. They have clearly done the calculus on whether or not to do these investigations. No matter what these investigations ultimately reveal, i.e., that misconduct did or did not occur, colleges and universities will be rightly criticized if they ignore the issue. If they fail to investigate, they will be charged with (1) burying their head in the sand; (2) failing to exercise good governance; and (3) worse yet, if wrongdoing is discovered by another party, covering it up. On the other hand, if they investigate, they can either proudly proclaim there was no wrongdoing or, if there is wrongdoing discovered, promptly report any wrongdoing, dissociate themselves from the wrongdoers, and immediately start to reform their internal processes to avoid such activity in the future.