Could Wikileaks Threaten Corporate Compliance Programs?

Dec. 3, 2010 - PRLog -- As authorities conduct an extensive criminal probe of Wall Street, is there an alternative to Wikileaks for investors and the public to find out about fraud and corruption inside a company?

1. From a compliance perspective, is there too much emphasis placed on “systems and processes” and not enough emphasis placed on the people risks within an organization?

2. Do you think that moral and ethical values of employees are relevant factors to assure the integrity of compliance programs?

3. Would it be beneficial to accurately measure and monitor the moral and ethical values of employees (i.e., measure the soft controls that define the corporate culture)?

4. Do you think there is value in using a common set of metrics to compare the moral and ethical values of employees to mitigate the risk of misconduct, fraud and corruption – minimizing the risk of information surfacing on Wikeleaks?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has long had a whistleblower program for insider trading. The results? According to a Senate report accompanying the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, less than $160,000 has been paid out to five whistleblowers.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 provides financial incentives for employees to tell regulators about securities fraud and other wrongdoing.  However, the law may increase costs for corporations and undermine internal fraud detection efforts launched under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  

zEthics is an alternative to Wikileaks.  Under proposed rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, zEthics strikes a unique balance between employees, corporations, investors and regulators - providing employees protections against retaliation and discrimination by employers; allowing employees to retain their status as providers of original information; while permitting the employer to investigate and self-report to regulators as necessary.

# # #

zEthics is an online information service that makes use of an innovative process to perform due diligence in the capital markets. The timing is perfect to introduce diagnostic tools that support a culture change in investing. Our Corporate Culture Benchmarks guide corporations in implementing change management strategies; our online incident management tools assure corporations that they have the right tools and the right team in place to manage risks; our tools provide institutional investors greater visibility into external investment managers and partners, to identify fraud, corruption, mismanagement and unintended risks; and, our tools expand the investors' toolkit to engage under-performing corporations and guide improvements in corporate governance.