How Properly Crafted Ethics Training Programs Can Be A Legal Defense
A recent study found that up to 80% of businesses are required to provide ethics training to their employees, and an additional 25% of businesses believe it’s a good idea to do so. But what exactly constitutes ethical behavior? And how can ethics training really be effective if it doesn’t address specific examples of unethical behavior? In this article, we’ll explore how properly crafted ethics training programs can be considered a legal defense in many situations, and why it’s important to ensure your program adheres to the federal sentencing guidelines on ethics in the workplace.
What Are The US Sentencing Guidelines?
The US Sentencing Guidelines are complex, and you definitely want a good lawyer to help navigate them. But for those who don’t mind getting their hands dirty with legalese, here’s an overview of how they work. According to these federal standards, all crimes in each category have what is called a base offense level associated with them. These range from 10 for nonviolent drug offenses to 43 for murder.
Is Anyone Immune From These Rules?
There are some laws that, although unethical, don’t violate an ethical law or statute. For example, if a person runs over someone else and takes off immediately without calling for help, they haven’t committed any crime. Even if it seems like a moral issue, it isn’t punishable by law. There are also situations where a person can do something unethical but there aren’t laws against it; in those cases, ethics rules apply.
Do These Rules Really Apply To Me?
You might think that if you’re not a public company or public official, or you don’t have deep pockets and high-risk stockholders to worry about, these rules don’t apply to you. That couldn’t be further from the truth—these guidelines have been written with everyone in mind and include provisions that affect individuals as well as companies.
What If I Don’t Know My Employee Committed An Ethics Violation?
First, you need to figure out what occurred. There are lots of things that could be considered an ethics violation: data breaches, embezzlement, abuse of company resources or even insider trading. Once you’ve identified what happened—and it’s worth noting that all violations must have occurred in connection with your business or a representative of your business—you need to determine whether any actual laws were broken as a result.
Based on recent very public issues there are three questions that will be asked if there’s a problem:
- What did you know?
- When did you know it?
- What did you do about it?
The answers to these questions create the foundation for the consequences that follow, whether you had direct knowledge or not of an illegal activity.
The Devil is in the Details – What Are Some Examples Of Properly Crafted Ethics Training
Programs That Could Shield Us From Liability Under The New Penal Code Section 8B1.5(a)(4)?
The courts have already held that a corporation could be liable for violating Section 8B1.5 if it creates an organizational culture (that is, an environment in which employees feel free to act in certain ways) that pressures them to act unethically. It doesn’t even need to do anything itself; it just needs to create or allow a culture where others can engage in wrongdoing without fear of punishment.
So, here’s the question…if you’re a senior executive, can you do anything that would shield you or provide you a legal defense from criminal prosecution when it comes to unethical/illegal actions by your employees? Yes…and that’s effective ethical training.
By definition here’s what that looks like or is described as:
Such compliance and ethics program shall be reasonably designed, implemented, and enforced so that the program is generally effective in preventing and detecting criminal conduct. The failure to prevent or detect the instant offense does not necessarily mean that the program is not generally effective in preventing and detecting criminal conduct.
So…does you ethics training program meet the definition provided by the US Sentencing Guidelines? If not, we need to talk!
