What issues should a company consider when hiring a Corporate Monitor?

The selection of an appropriate monitor can either make or break the entire monitorship program for an organization. To prevent such a problem from occurring, a company needs to have a clear understanding of what it is trying to achieve with a monitorship. If you are at the end of a FCPA enforcement action, your goals may be different than attempting to engage in a pre-settlement monitorship. You also need to understand any government requirements in a post-resolution settlement.

Considering the Monitor

After this initial self-assessment of the company’s goals, you can move on to considering the monitor. Here you need to assess the philosophy of potential candidates. Is the monitor coming in to simply investigate the company or will the monitor help the company to remediate, prevent or resolve issues? A monitor who adds value will avoid the prosecutorial “gotch-ya” mentality and instead will focus on remediation “to help you be a better company”.

The selection of an appropriate monitor can either make or break the entire monitorship program for an organization

The next line of inquiry is, can the company obtain the maximum value from the expertise, the independence and the viewpoints the monitor can provide?

In other words, what is the value the monitor will deliver to your organization?

You should ask the following question, “Can the Monitor help my business?”

Monitorship Expertise

Third you should ask, “what is the expertise of the monitor?” This question is about more than being a subject matter expert in the area of law being applied such as the FCPA; it concerns being an expert in monitorships. It is also more than simple cost-effectiveness. It is also how will the monitor perform their work without disrupting your organization or working to keep such disruptions to a minimum. Such expertise would include how to conduct an evaluation, how to create a work plan which is rigorous yet cost-effective, and how to “socialize the work plan with the company and with the government.”