Corporate compliance

Each legal practice area has specific aspects of compliance, but at Henry Towers we want to make it easy for you. We can develop a full compliance program for you by identifying corporate actions with potential risk of criminal liability, analyzing the controls implemented, developing a legal defense manual and training your teams. We are committed to providing an efficient service to maximize your business potential while keeping you compliant, and all the process will be as easy as ABC.

Information gathering and context understanding about corporate compliance.

Our team will work with you and your teams to understand the business context, corporate actions, and controls in place, so we can appropriately assess strategic alternatives and recommendations for you and your business. Having a comprehensive understanding is critical in order to coordinate with other divisions that are potentially implicated.

Execution process of Corporate Compliance.

Henry Towers’ experienced lawyers will develop a criminal risk matrix through inventory and classification of such risks. We will support the roll-out of improved controls and actions to mitigate risks and provide the training required as per the identified risks. We will draft and roll-out a Legal Defense Manual for your company. We can also support you in identifying and training a corporate compliance officer for your business.

Corporate Compliance Report

We will agree with you how often you would like us to inform you and your team about the progress made on the assignment, and elaborate a final report at the end of our service. A maintenance service is also highly recommended in order to keep the Corporate Defense Manual updated as well as to train new associates.

Aligned with the new Penal Code, this establishes the requirements for implementing a criminal compliance management system with the aim of preventing crime and reducing criminal risk in organizations and thereby fostering an ethical and compliance culture.

Organizations that correctly implement this standardized model may be able to see their criminal responsibility lessened or even be exempted by demonstrating due diligence and best practices in preventing and detecting crimes committed within them.

UNE 19601, drawn up with the participation and consensus of leading experts representing the legal profession and the different interest groups in the area of ​​criminal compliance, will be certifiable by an independent third party.

After almost two years of work and the result of the consensus of leading experts representing the different interest groups in the area of ​​criminal compliance, the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) has published on Thursday May 18 the Spanish Standard UNE 19601 Management Systems Of criminal compliance.

Requirements with guidance for use:

• This Standard, developed within the entity responsible for the development of technical standards in Spain, establishes the requirements to implement, maintain and continuously improve a system of management of criminal compliance in organizations with the aim of preventing crimes within them and reducing criminal risk, through the promotion of an ethical compliance culture.
• The UNE 19601 responds to the new scenario and the high interest for criminal compliance after the reform of the Criminal Code of 2010 that introduces in Spanish law the criminal responsibility of legal persons; But above all it responds to the latest reform of the Criminal Code of 2015 which indicates that legal persons who have implemented crime prevention models and meet a series of requirements may be exempted from criminal responsibility.
• The UNE 19601 mentions requirements that comply with what is indicated by the Penal Code for crime management and prevention models, but also goes further, incorporating globally accepted best practice in compliance.

Among the requirements, the Standard states that organizations must:

• Identify, analyze and evaluate criminal risks.
• Have adequate financial resources sufficient to achieve the objectives of the model.
• Use procedures to inform of potentially criminal behavior.
• Adopt disciplinary actions if there are breaches of the elements of the management system.
• Supervise the system by the criminal compliance body.
• Create a culture that integrates the policy and compliance management system.

This Standard has been prepared within the Technical Subcommittee on Standardization of UNE, CTN 307 / SC1 Compliance Management Systems and Anti-Corruption Management Systems, which has involved 36 members, experts representing the different stakeholders in the field of criminal compliance; Among these are the main Associations for the compliance function ASCOM and CUMPLEN, companies, AA.PP., consultants and law firms, universities, NGOs Transparency International and the Spanish Network of the United Nations Global Compact, consumer associations or trade unions.

This group has been working since 2013 on international standardization projects such as ISO 37001 on anti-bribery management systems. Guidance requirements for its use were published in October 2016. This document has recently been incorporated into the Spanish catalogue of standards such as UNE-ISO 37001, after adopting the official translation into Spanish of the standard by ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

The system established by the UNE 19601 presents the so-called High Level structure, common to all international ISO standards of management systems, making it easy to integrate into other management systems; For example, those described in the UNE-ISO 19600 Compliance Management Systems. Guidelines or in UNE-ISO 37001.

The mere implementation of the UNE Standard 19601 will not entail the automatic exoneration or attenuation of the criminal responsibility of the legal person, but it can constitute a fundamental element to prove that it acted diligently before the crime was committed and that it used the best practice, according to standardized and consensual models to create a culture of prevention that significantly reduced the risk of these crimes being committed.

This standard shall be certifiable by an independent third party; a way to ensure it is applied effectively. Circular 1/2016 of the State Attorney General's Office on the reform of the Criminal Code considers that the certifications can be valued as an additional element of the effectiveness of the models in exempting criminal entities that have implemented models from criminal responsibility for crime prevention.