White-Collar Crime rises in Crisis and Confusion, protect your Business

There is a well-known correlation between crisis and the rise of white-collar crime.  Historically crises, both man-made such as world wars, oil spills and recessions or environment driven events like hurricanes, tsunamis and contagions, have become the genesis of countless frauds and thefts.  The fragmented way many businesses are forced to operate at the present time coupled with the devastating economic impact that the coronavirus pandemic brings in its wake is the perfect breeding ground for white-collar crime at all levels.  Attacks can come from outside your business and from inside as well. It is an extremely uncomfortable reality that amongst your loyal staff there are some rogue employees who see your business as a target. Giambrone’s corporate and commercial team has expert lawyers experienced in dealing with a range of corporate white-collar crimes such as embezzlement and bribery.

The opportunities for white-collar crime are mainly, but not only, a direct consequence of the way businesses are forced to function with social distancing and isolation when working from home. The resulting limited direct oversight of employees, and difficulty in maintaining the usual internal policies and controls that businesses normally apply to ensure the opportunity for crime is eliminated opens the door to temptation.  It is highly probable that many businesses will soon be operating with staff rotating between the workplace and working from home in order to provide sufficient space to facilitate social distancing in the workplace. In this eventuality, if an organisation does not have robust policies and practices in place with cross-checking to prohibit criminal conduct occurring there is the potential for the deficiency to be noticed and the temptation to exploit the situation will be acted upon by staff. It is not at all surprising, given the relative speed at which the lockdown was required and also given the multitude of issues that had to be addressed, that some controls related to finance were relaxed for practical purposes. Giambrone’s corporate and commercial team can review and advise on processes incorporating checks and balances aimed at protecting the business from accidental or deliberate attack.

The opportunistic white-collar crime often arises in the following situations, where there are slack controls and cursory safeguards allowing activities such as acceptance of bribes or embezzlement to go unnoticed; another situation is when an employee is aggrieved by the way they perceive the company has treated them or feel that they have suffered an unfair impact, which creates a feeling of entitlement or a desire for retaliation.  The difficult decisions that businesses will be forced to make in this present crisis could possibly generate these sentiments in some employees.  Finally, the obvious circumstance of economic hardship where theft occurs;  this is often embarked on with the intention of replacing any money before it is missed but the situation spirals out of control. Again, the present emergency may be the catalyst for some employees to behave uncharacteristically, by removing the opportunity you are not only protecting your business but your employees as well.

It is never too late to impose a regime to prevent a rogue employee from taking advantage of the challenging situation that businesses are working under. For more information about protecting your business please click here