The Risks and Opportunities of Compliance Outsourcing

With compliance requirements on the rise in many industry sectors, the demands on in-house compliance teams have intensified. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, U.S. health care reform, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II are just a few of the regulatory developments that have resulted in increased compliance responsibilities. Add to this other rules in areas such as product safety, quality, and anti-money laundering and in-house legal teams are under a lot of pressure.

To Outsource or Not to Outsource?

To Outsource or Not to Outsource? In some industries, certain regulatory requirements or other sensitivities create a situation where all compliance activities need to remain in-house, and outsourcing is not an option. In other sectors, outsourcing part or all of the compliance function may be an alternative worth exploring.

The decision to outsource may be driven by one or more of the challenges that compliance functions face, including:

• Skilled labor and talent shortages
• Complex compliance processes
• Shifting compliance demands
• Technology infrastructure
• Global compliance needs
• Overall operating costs

How to Decide

The decision to outsource may have inherent risks and challenges that should be carefully assessed. Particularly large global companies, in highly regulated industries such as financial services and life sciences, the skills required for effective compliance management are changing and becoming more complex. To gain the maximum value from outsourcing, decision-makers need to carefully weigh which functions should be kept in-house versus those that can be outsourced -- or those that should be managed through a combination of in-house resources and outsourcing providers. Depending on the industry sector, compliance activities that may be outsourced include:

• Collecting and collating compliance data and information
• Assisting with internal and external compliance reporting
• Monitoring business processes and systems for compliance
• Performing trend analyses and predictive modeling for compliance operations

No matter what is outsourced, it is important to remember that the company outsourcing its compliance activities, is still accountable for meeting all its regulatory obligations. The responsibility does not fall to the LPO provider.

Data Security is Essential in All Sectors

Data security is a major concern of Legal Process Outsourcing, including risks to intellectual property and sensitive company information. To protect data security when outsourcing compliance tasks, organizations should consider the following:

• Clearly define the data security requirements and expectations for the security environment with the outsourcing vendor
• Assess the provider’s IT security and business continuity capabilities and plans
• Require that the provider maintain a client-specific security and control environment
• Specify the tools and techniques that can be employed to achieve data security
• Define the frequency and types of provider audits the company may conduct
• Place a high priority on data security in service contracts and service-level agreements

With careful planning, strong service-level agreements, and supervision, compliance outsourcing can be advantageous to many companies over-burdened with regulatory compliance obligations.

Check more info about: Lawyer Conferences USA and New York Association of Lawyers

The Global Outsourcing Association of Lawyers (Goal) is the world’s first membership-based, non-political international organization for the legal outsourcing industry Click Here For More Information : Lawyers Events Usa and Legal Services Usa