Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everyone. You've got questions and we've got answers. Welcome to another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast.
The Business Ethics Leadership alliance, or bella, is a global ethics and compliance community that provides exclusive access to helpful data, benchmarking events and other resources to help advance your ethics and compliance program.
Now, one of those resources is bella's concierge service in which members can submit any question at all regarding ethics and compliance and our internal experts will provide an answer, plus helpful resources with more information.
We invite everyone watching and listening to join bella, but we also know that there's no competition in compliance. So that's why we're using this program to thematically respond to to high level questions from the Bella community for the benefit of EC teams everywhere. And joining us once again to answer those questions is Bella chair Erica Salmon Byrne. Erica, thank you so much for joining us again on the program. It's a delight to see you.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Oh, Bill, thanks for having me. I'm back. We have more questions. Let's do this.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: You're back. Well, hey, our next question is an antitrust question and it reads what does a good antitrust or anti competition prevention program look like?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, and Bill, this is a very timely question because we just saw out of the U.S. department of justice the publication or participation rather by the Antitrust division in the new DOJ whistleblower rewards program. So they have now set up a pipeline, much like they have for cases over on the fraud side at doj. They have now set up a pipeline, interestingly, in conjunction with the Postal Service, to allow people to participate in the recovery of, or participate rather in a reward for bringing to the department information about companies that are trying to harm the public's interest in strong competition. So it is absolutely something that companies of all shapes and sizes should spend some time thinking about. What does my antitrust or anti competition risk look like? What level of exposure do I have to this new risk area and what should I try to get my arms around? Quickly, promptly and expeditiously. Quickly, promptly and expeditiously. Given the fact that the department is now offering members of the public as well as my own employees, a very good reason to go outside of my internal channels. So whereas before, you know, antitrust was not specifically something that could participate in the rewards program the department set up, you know, they had other priorities on the fraud side. Now the Antitrust division has their own. So and this is particularly important because antitrust violations are an area where self disclosure basically guaranteed you immunity if you brought, if you participated in a cartel or, you know, engaged in price fixing, fixing or collusion or bid rigging or supplier blackballing. If you did any of those things and you brought it to the government and you got there first, you were pretty much guaranteed that nothing was going to happen to you as an organization even if you had participated in this behavior.
Now we have a situation where your employees are incentivized financially to get that information in before you do. And so you really want to look at what is your antitrust and anti competition risk look like. This is going to need to be a function, business unit territory related analysis. Because not every part of your organization is going to present you with the same kind of of antitrust risk. Right. Thinking about your procurement team, thinking about your sales team, thinking about your R and D team, thinking about, you know, all of these different groups, what kind of risk do they present me with from an antitrust perspective, what am I looking at in terms of exposure from a competition law perspective? And then tailoring your message to those different business units so that you can help them understand what is expected as far as behavior is concerned. And then it's really about doubling down on your speak up communications. Well, how do I keep those channels open? How am I communicating back when things come up so that this off ramp directly to the government becomes a less attractive one for your employee base?
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Well, Erica, I say it so many times, but I learned something every time you come on the show. So thank you so much for giving us your time and attention today to answer this question from the community.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Oh no, Bill, absolutely my pleasure. And for those of you out there who'd like to read more about what the Department of Justice just did, it was from the 8th of July. The announcement of the program is up on the DOJ's website. We can link it in the show notes. But it really is an opportunity here to think about not only your employee exposure, but also third parties. Right. This is often a place where the behavior that becomes a collusion issue starts in your vendor or supplier relationships. So also think a lot about, you know, who are the folks on that side of things that expose me to some potential concerns in this area and how am I going to get my arms around that? Because the NHS division has remained active, there's a lot of work being done here in the US in that area in particular, as well as in other jurisdictions from a regulatory perspective. So it's a good time to take a step back and say, do I have the program I need for the risks that I'm facing and then shore up what you need to shore up if you don't.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: To learn more About Bela, visit eTosphere.com Bella to request guest access to the Member Resource Hub and to speak with the Bella Engagement Director. If you have a question that you would like answered on this program, contact the Bella Concierge Service and we'll get to work on it for you.
This has been another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. Thanks for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. And be sure to tell a colleague about us as well. It really helps the program.
That's all for now, but until next time, remember, strong ethics is good business.
