As cross-border cooperation increases, it puts new strains on corporate compliance functions. Enforcement risks can come at the organization from new directions; reducing those risks might entail adopting new practices or enhancing old ones.

This is especially true for due diligence of customers, business partners, suppliers, and other third parties. We’ve seen several instances recently of cross-border enforcement where the defendant company’s third parties were instrumental in misconduct. The most notable examples are violations of anti-bribery statutes, but third parties can also pose enormous risk for data privacy, price-fixing, fraud, product safety, and even industry-specific misconduct such as off-label marketing of pharmaceuticals.

This paper will review the rise in cross-border enforcement of corporate conduct laws, and how due diligence programs can reduce both the risk of misconduct and the potential penalties should misconduct occur. It will also explore what “effective” due diligence looks like in the current enforcement world and how corporate compliance officers can try to achieve that goal.