Transparency and Accountability Governance Risk and Compliance Questions

Seeking for research paper/essay writing assistance. There are 5 open questions around Governance, Risk and Compliance that would need to be addressed in consideration of the below requirements:

1. The assignment requires regulatory and compliance expertise from an excellent English speaker.
2. Answers should be made under US legislation (possibly New York) with some comparisons with the EU legislation. Field of choice: IT.
2. Please collate the assignment as a single document in a Microsoft Word format.

3. All marking is anonymous, which means your name should not appear on your work.

4. All work should be properly referenced. ?
5. The total word count for this assignment should be no less than 3,300 (approx 12 pages). This includes all in-text references and appendices but excludes any footnotes, reference page or contents page. N.B. Appendices should only be used in exceptional circumstances and should consist of only brief extracts or tables. ?
6. The number of words per part of the question should be in proportion to the number of marks allocated. ?

7. Please see below the questions – appreciate your efforts!

Q1

Explain why internationally agreed standards of regulation are important, highlighting the benefits from having these in place at both an international and jurisdictional level. Support your answer with relevant examples.

DRAFTING NOTES: Focus is on the different roles of internal stakeholders involved in supporting effective GRC practices within regulated firms and this could include those such as the board, the compliance function, risk management operations, for example. However, irrespective of the selections made it is how the writer support their selection (through consideration of relevant responsibilities, resulting activities and so on) and provide examples in doing so that will effectively demonstrate knowledge and understanding. Examples should therefore be apparent, ideally one for each of the stakeholders referred to, to illustrate how the activities of each contributes to the effectiveness of the approach overall. Types of topics that could be covered here include supporting effective culture, policies, systems, controls, training, education and so on, with, examiners assessing efficacy in how well these support their intended purpose and explanation provided.

Q2

Identify two regulatory directives or initiatives that have been implemented, or are in the process of being implemented, in a jurisdiction and sector of your choice. Consider the implementation process and show, through the use of practical examples, how this has impacted or has the potential to impact upon your chosen jurisdiction and sector, and on a particular regulated firm within that jurisdiction/sector.

DRAFTING NOTES: the goal is to demonstrate the relevance of the chosen bodies activities for the overall regulatory environment and also for a particular jurisdiction, so examiners would expect to see consideration of this in respect of topics such as international/local standards, jurisdiction/sector aims and objectives, global initiatives/focus, and such like, with practical examples provided in support of the commentary included.

Q3

Describe the assessment made by the regulator of a sector and jurisdiction of your choice prior to a firm being authorised by them. Within this, explain the purpose and methodology of this assessment, make clear the relevance of this for the firm and provide examples to illustrate the approach adopted.

DRAFTING NOTES: The writer shall select an example of failure in corporate governance in a regulated firm that has occurred within the last five years. Unfortunately, there are many of these to choose from (a number of which are referred to throughout the earlier Units of the course text). Having selected such an example, an effective answer should briefly describe what happened (with an emphasis required here on a description, rather than more generally writing about, together with relative brevity) then assess the consequences for the firm involved (so there should be some form of assessment apparent). The writer should provide their views, therefore views should be apparent, on the lessons that could be learned from that failure – this is the focus of the latter part of the question. Focus here is to demonstrate practical understanding of corporate governance and its relevance

Q4

Thomas is a member of the compliance function team at a firm regulated in a jurisdiction and sector of your choice. He has been asked by his line manager, the head of regulatory compliance, to contribute to an upcoming training day for new members of the team by preparing a paper to act as the basis of part of the training. In this, he has been asked to demonstrate why and how a wide range of matters – such as an economic downturn, the emergence of scandals, or other such significant events – have the potential to influence the development of regulation in that jurisdiction, and to explain the relevance of this development for firms regulated within that jurisdiction and sector.

With reference to the above scenario and to the fundamental objectives of regulation:

discuss why and how matters such as an economic downturn, the emergence of scandals, or other significant events have the potential to influence the development of regulation in your chosen jurisdiction and sector, and

highlight and recommend the most important messages you, as a compliance professional, would want to ensure were communicated to new staff members attending a training day (such as that referred to in the scenario), supporting your views with reasoning and examples.

DRAFTING NOTES: This question draws on topics referred to across the earlier units of the course text. Regulatory focus, themes, supervision requirements, fit and properness test, and wider topics such as reputation are all possible considerations in answering this question, which references the information provided by fines to act as a backdrop to assessing the writer’s understanding of why the regulator’s focus is of importance to regulated firms. In a satisfactory answer, the writer should identify one of the themes evident from recent fines issued by a regulator of a sector of their choice, selecting appropriate examples to illustrate their views. Themes such as focus on individuals, honesty and integrity, system and control failings, size of fines, etc. are examples of what might be apparent but here it is again not so much the theme that the candidate highlights but how they have supported their comments on this through their selection of examples to illustrate their views that is most important. Specifically, the writer need to discuss (i.e. there should be inclusion of the facts and some interpretation from different sides of the argument, with the aim of arriving at a conclusion, rather than just writing generally around the subject matter) and make clear what can be inferred from these themes about the current and intended focus of the regulator (this is an opportunity for the candidate to demonstrate their knowledge about the current and intended focus and the way in which the regulator is prioritising action in these areas), then explain (so an explanation should be apparent, again rather than just writing about) the relevance of this theme to a firm authorised by that regulator (for example covering topics such as prioritisation of issues, hot topics, areas of focus within the firm, etc., as appropriate re the nature of that firm and its products/services)

Q.5

The transparency and accountability of the regulator is crucial to the effectiveness of the regulatory system.

With reference to the chosen jurisdiction, regulated sector of IT and to the above statement, evaluate the responsibilities of the regulator(s), showing how the regulator’s transparency and accountability is ensured and demonstrating the relevance of this for the effectiveness of the regulatory system overall. You should include examples to support the points made.

DRAFTING NOTES: This question provides the writer with an open opportunity to demonstrate their thinking around a topic of practical relevance, consideration of which is inherent within the field. Reasonable responses will demonstrate consideration of the various factors that contribute to the statement and discuss these (i.e. there should be inclusion of the facts and their interpretation from different sides of the argument, with the aim of arriving at a conclusion) however the broad nature of the question phrasing gives scope for the writer to be open in their approach and, in so doing, provides more able individuals with the opportunity to really demonstrate depth of practical understanding around the issues at hand. In an effective answer, the question posed in the statement will have been addressed – essentially this should form the backdrop to the discussion. There should be some form of evaluation of the impact of the different approaches in the context of its impact on GRC activities, which requires the writer to consider the impact of working in an environment/within a culture of just meeting minimum requirements (for example with a focus on box ticking, doing the minimum possible, etc.) compared to working in one in which all act in an ethical way more generally (i.e. where meeting expectations re compliance is part of normal day-to-day business practice). Each of these opposing types of business culture would have a definite practical impact in terms of how the firm and those within it viewed compliance and related activity, with obvious consequences for many, including the compliance function and how they approach their role. In short, numerous topics for the writer to choose from in their discussion, with examiners expecting to see addressing of the different elements and assessing predominantly on how effectively the writer have utilised their choice of topics to address the main focus of the question. The writer should include examples that relate to the chosen topics and their discussions around them. Real life examples would be useful, whilst illustrative examples are of course acceptable.