Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO) Guidelines for your GRC System

Why Should You Attend:

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO) were amended in 2004 after Sarbanes-Oxley, and in 2010 after Dodd-Frank and it is mandatory for all public and private sector organizations to meet the requirements of these guidelines. Under these guidelines any organization with ethics and compliance programs that meet certain standards can earn significantly reduced penalties (in some cases up to 95 %) and enforcement actions if any employee is engaged in wrongdoing.

The objective of this course is to provide attendees with a basic understanding necessary to efficiently design and enhance GRC activities across the business ensuring they are in conformance with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO) new requirements from the 2010 amendments. It will explain what the FSGO requirements are and how an organization can ensure their ethics and compliance program conforms to the FSGO.

Areas Covered in the Seminar:

• An introduction to the FSGO
• History and how we got to where we are today
• Learn how FSGO is related to a GRC capability?
• The seven necessary elements covered by the FSGO
• What is considered an effective ethics & compliance program?
• How to provide assurance on FSGO to your management and board
• Practical examples and guidelines for each element

Who Will Benefit:

• Internal Auditors
• Ethics Professionals
• Compliance Professionals
• Risk Management
• Attorneys and Legal Staff
• Audit Committee Members

Instructor Profile:

Jason Mefford, is an internationally sought after adviser and speaker on ethics, corporate governance, GRC, and internal audit topics. Mr Mefford is currently the President of Mefford Associates, a professional training, coaching and boutique advisory firm. He has been the chief audit executive at two different multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies. Prior to that; he was a manager at two different large public accounting firms, performing internal and external audits and advisory services for clients in various industries. He is also a Fellow with the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG) a non-profit think tank that uniquely helps organizations drive Principled Performance® by enhancing corporate culture and integrating governance, risk management, and compliance processes.

Topic Background:

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) was the start of mandated compliance programs for publicly-traded organizations in the United States. The Savings and Loan (S&L) crisis of the 1980s resulted in the collapse of many financial institutions and the loss of billions of investors’ money. Many of the S&L failures were the results of criminal wrongdoing due either to the failure, or lack, of organizational ethics and compliance programs. The compliance programs, started because of FCPA, did not seem to be effective. In 1984, Congress enacted The Sentencing Reform Act, which created a set of mandatory federal sentencing guidelines and established the US Federal Sentencing Commission.

The FSGO were enacted by the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 1991 for two purposes: to provide just punishment and act as a deterrent to organizations from indulging in criminal wrongdoing. They also started to clarify the government’s expectation of what it considered to be an effective ethics and compliance program.

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