Your partner: Uncle Sam?
Our government impacts business through legislation and regulation. It creates the legal playing field that all legitimate businesses operate on. When companies cross the foul lines and Uncle Sam prosecutes, the government may elect to become your business partner and help you nurse your business back to compliance through the use of deferred prosecution agreements, as AIG discovered last Fall.
As if pulling up a seat at the table wasn’t bad enough, Congress is expected to adopt legislation that allows shareholders to vote on executive pay. And for those companies currently benefiting from Uncle Sam’s largess through bailout money, the five most senior executives and their twenty most highly paid employees will have their compensation determined by a “special master for compensation” appointed by the U.S. Treasury Department.
The message is clear. If you don’t want Uncle Sam to be your not so silent business partner, it pays to do the right things up front.