Partner Ted Banks was a guest on a recent “Compliance Beat” Podcast where he discussed a number of issues related to compliance.
Mr. Banks, the former Chief Counsel for Global Compliance Policy at Kraft Foods, discussed his early years giving compliance presentations to employees – and the need to remember that a compliance presentation is not the same as writing a court brief.. “The most important lesson I learned the hard way is that, whatever you’re doing, you have to always do it from the point of view of your target audience,” he said.
As adjunct professor of law at Loyola University, he’s challenged his law students to do the same. He asks them to take a step back from the law and instead craft policies that will work in the real world. “If I give them an assignment to write a policy about business gifts and entertainment, they come up with lots of language that they think should be in the policy,” said Banks. “I ask them, ‘At the end of the day, if you’re an employee and someone handed this (policy) to you, would you know what to do?’”
When asked about compliance trends of the future, Mr. Banks predicted that technology advances from new social media platforms to autonomous cars will introduce a whole new area of compliance risk and compliance problems. “As you roll out this new technology, you have to consider not just the coolness of it but all the things that may happen based on the way people behave and interact with this technology,” he said.
Three Questions with Ted Banks is featured after the first 15 minutes of the show. Listen to the podcast.
