WHAT IS THE VALUE OF AN EFFECTIVE COMPLIANCE PROGRAM?
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 4:21PM All too often many businesses value a compliance program based on an assessment of the cost of staffing and other expenses incurred in implementation and operation. However, the true value of an effective compliance program is in terms of the cost for non-compliance. About one year ago Swiss bank, UBS AG, faced allegations of attempt to defraud U.S. taxing authorities. UBS was fined $780 million and ordered to hand over the names of some U.S. customers to the U.S. Justice Department to resolve criminal sanctions and other legal issues. In addition to the fines, UBS suffered additional losses as a result of some of its wealthy clients withdrawing about $179 Billion in deposits. What would have been the cost for UBS to implement changes to its business policies and good practices to avoid the problems it ran into in the first place? It would appear the answer to that question would be close to what it cost UBS to prepare and implement an 11 page code of conduct which required employees to comply with tax reporting rules. PRACTICE http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-12/ubs-asks-workers-to-sign-code-pledging-tax-compliance-secrecy.html
Reader Comments (1)
Swiss bank was right when he said it is not normal to disclose bank secrecy
U.S. authorities ought to do the job that this money was not stolen