Compliance Institute 2023
By Adam Felsenthal, Immediate Past Co-Chair, Compliance Committee
The compliance industry is ready for its close up. That is the clear message that emerges from the success of last year’s inaugural Compliance Institute and the run-up to this year’s event. The Compliance Institute is an all-day in-person CLE event taking place on October 24 at the New York City Bar Association’s headquarters at 42 W. 44th Street.
It is sponsored by the Compliance Committee, which, despite only forming in 2014, has quickly become one of the Bar Association’s most active and influential committees. The Committee’s members include in-house compliance professionals, law firm attorneys, consultants and regulators. While the plurality of members work in the financial industry, many work in general corporate compliance across a range of industries, including healthcare, sports, manufacturing and services. Under the leadership of founding chair Mike McMaster, and most recently Co-Chairs Pat Campbell and Adam Felsenthal, the Committee has organized numerous CLEs (both in-person and virtual) and submitted numerous comment letters to various regulatory bodies. Of particular prominence, it released a Report on Chief Compliance Officer Liability in the Financial Industry discussing the state of CCO liability and making several proposals to regulators. After SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce publicly cited and echoed the Report’s call for a framework on CCO liability, the Committee released a proposed framework, which Commissioner Peirce has also positively cited publicly.
After seeing the tremendous interest in the Committee’s work, it made sense to offer an in-person Institute, especially given the success of the other Institutes that the Bar Association offers. The Compliance Institute uniquely provides learning opportunities for law firm attorneys, compliance professionals, consultants and service providers. Special tracks offer specialized sessions for those who work in asset management, as broker-dealers and in general corporate compliance. Last year’s Institute featured an array of recognized experts as panelists, including several speakers from the SEC, DOJ, OCC, New York State Department of Financial Services, and other federal and state regulators and law enforcement agencies.
The growing complexity of the regulatory framework has undoubtedly driven the Committee’s growth and the success of the Institute. The SEC has proposed or issued numerous new rules in the past two years, including most recently a vast overhaul of private fund regulation. The DOJ, for its part, has emphasized on numerous occasions the importance of strong corporate compliance programs to avoid fines and other sanctions in FCPA and other investigations. To make matters even more complex, cybersecurity and data privacy has emerged as a completely new area for regulatory oversight in the past decade. All of this makes running a compliance program far more important and demanding of careful understanding and nuanced analysis than ever before.
This year’s Institute is looking to build on the success of last year’s event as Committee leadership passes to new Co-Chairs Rory Cohen and Devi Shanmugham. The panels include “How to Make Your Compliance Program Practical and Successful: Recent Trends and Best Practices,” “Current Trends in Broker-Dealer Regulations and Enforcement,” Current Issues in Anti-Corruption, AML, and Trade Sanctions Compliance,” “AI Technologies and Predictive Data Analytics,” “Current Trends in Asset Management Regulations and Enforcement,” “Privacy and Security: A Practical Approach to Addressing Data Trends,” and “Addressing DE&I Issues in Compliance.”
A particularly exciting development for this year’s Institute will be the featured speakers. Gurbir Grewal, the Director of Enforcement at the SEC, will be the Institute’s Keynote Speaker during lunch. In addition, the program will kick off with a fireside chat featuring Preet Bharara, a Partner at WilmerHale and the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Both of these speakers will provide attendees with rare insights into regulatory thinking. These speakers will supplement the other regulators speaking at the Institute, including Jennifer Duggins, Co-Head of the Private Funds Unit inside the Division of Examinations at the SEC.
The Institute will offer the following CLE credits: NY: 3.5pp; Cyber-General: 1.0; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: 1.0.
Find more information and register here.
