Legal Compliance Evaluation

When evaluating the legal compliance all the aspects must be considered, including: health and safety, environmental responsibilities, data protection, tax regulations, accounting requirements, corporate and business laws of the country.

Depending on the nature of your business and specific jurisdiction, the reporting requirements are quite different.

An annual review, supplemented by regular checks, is critical to successfully evaluating legal compliance.

Questions to ask on a regular basis:

Have there been any recent developments in the company or industry that need to be reflected in new policies? Are the employees aware of the policies and following them?
Compliance teams must have enough strategic oversight of the corporate structure to be able to forecast the effects of changes to regulations and laws.
Ensure that all record keeping is strong throughout the business and across all entities, and the legal compliance teams know what to keep a record of, and that it's safely kept in an easy-to-access central storage; the quality of records is critical to successful legal compliance evaluation.
When assessing your organization's compliance, it's critical to include non-legal obligations as well. Is the corporation a member of any industry codes of conduct? Are all ethical guidelines followed by operations? Do you follow the licensing regulations rules?

Compliance policies need to be clearly communicated to everyone within the organization who must understand their responsibilities when it comes to compliance. Scheduling regular checks throughout the entire organization and preparedness to make necessary changes if required is one of the ways to ensure that your organization is following the legal compliance rules.

The key is ensuring that the entity is legally compliant with the external rules imposed upon the business by the state authorities or industry – specific agency regulations, including compliance with the local legislation and ethical standards, and compliant as well in terms of the internal systems of control imposed by the business to help it achieve compliance with those externally imposed rules.

Compliance standards must be followed regardless of the size of the company or the industry.

Our offices can assist with legal advice and guidance on the impact of applicable laws and regulations on client’s operations on a case-by-case basis and also on long-term projects.

We can also assist you with the legal review of the company’s documentation (draft agreements, existing agreements, protocols, contracts, statements, etc.) to comply with applicable laws of a particular country.

Other compliance matters to consider:

Codes of practice to be adhered to;
Ethical guidelines;
Is industry licensing required? How often it needs to be renewed? ;
Compliance with the tenancy agreements;
Understanding by all the employees of their compliance responsibilities;
Performing compliance checks;
Having quick access to up-to-date data on an organization;
As a consequence of the check-up, be ready to make changes if necessary

How to ensure you’re fully legally compliant?

You can assess entity’s compliance on 2 levels:

External compliance which implies – compliance with the governmental and industry-related regulations
Internal compliance rules which are being supervised by the organization in order to attain compliance with externally imposed rules.

Ultimate goal of any compliance is avoiding either short or long-lasting material, reputational effects or inconveniences on an entity and its partners. By tracking compliance requirements to ensure that they are met, your business entity can avoid the risks of penalties, damaged reputation or lawsuits.

Get in touch with us to discover how we can you in achieving compliance goals, and assist you to get clarity on how to evaluate legal compliance.