S&P Settlement is 1.4B but people are asking where’s the beef?

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2014-snell-roy-speaking-headshot-200By Roy Snell
roy.snell@corporatecompliance.org

S&P Settlement is 1.4B but people are asking where’s the beef?

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USA Today reported that moments after the 1.4 billion dollar settlement with S&P was announced, some complained it was not enough to penalize them for the past acts. USA today quoted Congressman Brad Sherman, “Penalizing for past offenses is always good. But we need a new system to prevent the problem in the future.”  More and more often people are wondering why there isn’t greater emphasis on future prevention in these types of settlements.  I would be surprised if the settlement didn’t include some prevention system changes.  However, it’s likely, that if there were not enough mandatory prevention changes in the settlement, this incident will encourage the use of mandatory compliance programs in more settlements in the future.  Healthcare enforcement regularly includes specific provisions in their settlements for compliance program improvements.  If enforcement specialists in other industries continue to get this blowback, more industries may find themselves in the same situation as healthcare with more mandatory compliance programs as a part of their settlements.