Perspectives on Monitorships and Successful Compliance Transformation

A BCG Compliance Magazine Special Issue

Compliance and integrity have always been key success factors for companies. Today, this importance ever increases as investors take ESG ratings and value beyond financial impact into their focus. Regulatory regimes, at the same time, are tightening significantly, with the EU emerging as a new super regulator.

During the past decade, huge fines for compliance breaches have hit the headlines and made boardrooms everywhere sit up and take notice. Such fines are often accompanied by less conspicuous sanctions, such as heightened scrutiny and oversight by regulators. For example, US or UK authorities may assign so-called monitors to oversee and control remediation activities. And similar initiatives are on the way in Europe, too: Only recently, the future government in Germany presented its coalition agreement, where it takes up this idea already developed under the previous government, setting another important milestone for a European monitorship in the near future.

In our Special Issue on monitorships of BCG’s Compliance Magazine, we have gathered the perspectives of chief integrity and compliance officers who have been through a monitorship, former team members of independent monitors, and BCGers who have supported several clients during monitorships to explore what can lead to a monitorship, how a monitorship can be successfully steered, and how companies can emerge from a crisis stronger than before.