Risk Advisory Group report: Compliance is so complex, it’s now its own risk (with video)

Compliance is becoming so complex that today’s compliance professionals are concerned about how the function will protect businesses in the future, according to the London-based Risk Advisory Group.

It surveyed more than 200 compliance professionals across a range of global businesses.

The research report — The Compliance Horizon — reveals that a large majority (83 percent) of compliance professionals believe compliance has become more complex in the past two years, with bigger businesses feeling this more acutely.

Thirty-four percent of compliance professionals in businesses with more than 10,000 employees said compliance has become much more complex in the past two years.

And only 13 percent of compliance professionals in businesses with more than 10,000 employees are very confident in their team’s ability to protect their business to the level required.

“Worryingly, compliance has become so elaborate that 78 percent of compliance professionals say that it now represents a risk in itself,” Rick Advisory Group CEO Bill Waite said. Waite is also a contributing editor of the FCPA Blog.

The respondents cited increased regulation over the next 12 months as the top challenge facing compliance departments, followed by geopolitical events — in particular the EU referendum.

“Our research shows that compliance professionals have an increasingly difficult job to do,” Waite said.

“There is a huge amount of change and a huge amount of legislation, and the need to keep up with it and understand its impact on business is putting compliance professionals under immense strain across all sectors,” he said.

The report is based on an online survey of 217 compliance professionals conducted by the Risk Advisory Group in October 2015.

Respondents came from a broad cross-section of businesses in terms of size and sector and from all continents.

The Risk Advisory Group was founded in 1997. It employs 140 people in offices in Washington DC, London, Moscow, Al Khobar (Saudi Arabia), Dubai, and Hong Kong.

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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here.