The intricate and interconnected global financial system. Ensuring financial compliance, especially across international business transactions and among multinational corporations that operate in many countries, has become a job of utmost importance—job number one, in fact.

The risks linked to non-compliance have never been greater. Businesses that do not follow financial rules and regulations have to pay dearly, and the cost can be quite high, including in the following ways:

• Paying large fines and penalties that can reach into the millions or even billions of dollars
• Suffering serious reputational damage that can erode customer trust and investor confidence
• Facing legal action from a variety of regulatory bodies, along with the risk of incurring criminal charges
• Having business activities restricted or losing important operating licenses
• Living under a microscope and facing ongoing "special" audits of an intense and rigorous nature

Worldwide organizations find that several facets make sustaining compliance a challenge. Among them are:

• An ever-evolving and diverse set of regulations governing our jurisdictions
• A renewed and keener focus on the privacy of our data and the protection of consumer information
• A growing complexity in our financial products and services
• An ever-constant barrage of rising cybersecurity threats and other digital risks
• A relentless push to streamline our operations while enhancing our control over compliance.

To manage these challenges certainly and capably, enterprises need to build solid compliance ecosystems. A compliance ecosystem is a whole compliance program, within a company, that spans all the parts of a company’s footprint in every market where it has any business activity. A solid compliance program is built with lots and lots of people, a clear process, and solid tech to enforce that process and ensure compliance. In short, if companies want to manage these considerable challenges, they need to build better compliance programs.

Being a worldwide legal office with a main focus on financial compliance, we have experienced how vital it is for corporations that operate across national borders to pay attention to the regulatory framework in which they must function. Our accomplished paralegals work closely with our clients in not just figuring out the regulatory thicket that confronts them in the various jurisdictions in which they must operate, especially with regard to making cross-border deals, but also in fashioning a comprehensive compliance structure that is unique to each client.

Understanding Global Financial Regulations