• Gifts, Travel, and Entertainment

  • Aug 31 2021
  • Length: 28 mins
  • Podcast

Gifts, Travel, and Entertainment

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  • Summary

  • The FCPA world is littered with enforcement actions against companies for the most basic compliance failures – those around gifts, travel, and entertainment (GTE). Many compliance professionals struggle with issues from GTE: Violations can arise out of anything, from discrepancies between outbound and inbound reporting to simply relying too heavily on the manual process of maintaining spreadsheets. As your company is considering RTW sometime in fall 2021, you know you will need to remind everyone about why GTE is so critical to compliance. How do you add in an analysis of more efficient business travel, time use, and even whether you need to travel for meetings? Key points discussed in the episode: ✔️The Gifts, Travel, and Entertainment (GTE) Policy is foundational to a company's values. GTE touches so many other pieces in a compliance program – COI, anti-corruption, anti-fraud, government contracting, donations/corporate giving, marketing in the healthcare space, etc. Small numbers are essential, and telling the truth about GTE reimbursement is critical to an ethical culture.    ✔️Each company has different GTE rules in place – first, you have to take stock of what rules apply to your company and your sales force.  ✔️ Look at who you do business with? If your customers are all state governments, that makes it easy – no gifts or entertainment, ever—however, companies operating in several markets may have varying customers. Be aware of what your customers can and cannot accept re: GTE. ✔️ In your organization, build a policy that speaks to your specific obligations. Make it clear that every single gift or entertainment expense must be documented and submitted, and nothing is off-books.  ✔️ Include as many examples as possible in your policy – call out specific things that are not allowed (aka DO NOT GIVE ANYONE A FERRARI OR A HOUSE IN THE HAMPTONS…OR A CONGRESSIONAL SEAT).  ✔️ Make things much more concrete and give people an idea of what's appropriate and not appropriate. It is essential to call out cash and cash equivalents to explain better why It is NEVER okay to give cash or equivalents as GTE.  ✔️ Train the heck out of the policy – both the broad workforce and the finance team that will be reviewing the invoices and the sales team that will be incurring the expenses. Walk them through expectations and what to watch out for as red flags. ✔️ Use checklists – give the team reviewing invoices a list of what to look for (good and bad) and have them do it (formally or informally) for each invoice.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to SURVIVE AND THRIVE, the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network. This is a podcast where we unpack compliance, crisis disasters and walk you through all the red flags which appear, and give you some lessons learned going forward. This show is hosted by Compliance Evangelist Thomas Fox and Kortney Nordrum, Regulatory Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, Deluxe Corporation.  Do you have a podcast (or do you want to)? Join the only network dedicated to compliance, risk management, and business ethics, the Compliance Podcast Network. For more information, contact Tom Fox at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.
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