By Adam Turteltaub

Your organization has just reached a settlement with the government, and you have a corporate monitor.  Making that relationship work is essential not just for meeting the terms of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement.  It’s also essential for coming out of the monitorship with a much stronger compliance and ethics program.

Eric Feldman of Affiliated Monitors, Inc. and Tom Topolski worked closely together when Tom’s previous employer had engaged Eric as a monitor.  In this podcast they discuss what made their relationship work, and the lessons every compliance professional can take away when in the middle of, or about to face, a monitorship.

They explain:

* Getting a monitor is not always negative; it’s also a good opportunity to adopt best practices

* Red flags that a monitor would see as a symptom of a larger problem than expected

* The importance of trust to the relationship

* The monitor has to go in with a mindset that they are there to be collaborative, and that collaboration and independence are not mutually exclusive

* The goal is to work together to build the best organization possible using compliance best practices