Pinheiro Guimarães renders legal services to companies, financial institutions, ethics committees, officers and directors, and other parties having issues in matters of corporate integrity, compliance programs, and internal investigations. The Compliance Unit analyzes structures and procedures whereby a company attempts to comply with its legal and regulatory obligations, to promote an ethical corporate culture, and to prevent and detect, and to responds to, any acts of illegal or unethical behavior. The scope of those services comprises not only regulatory compliance focused on the corporate culture and high ethical standards but also financial crime prevention, most notably laws and regulations regarding antibribery and anticorruption requirements as well as white collar crimes in general.

The Compliance Unit counsels on integrity due diligence (DDI) in public bidding, concessions, and development and project finance. Such services also cover third-party due diligence, background checks, sanctions, compliance monitoring, and counselling on audits for the purpose of obtaining compliance certifications.

With respect to corporate integrity, the firm responds to a client’s needs by reviewing the implication of acts or omissions on the part of the client and its personnel in terms of possible adverse effects on the franchise risk of the client or on the client’s corporate culture, especially in light of its own internal policies and guidelines.

Pinheiro Guimarães accompanies internal investigations upon request from clients, regardless of whether those investigations are initiated internally by the client itself or by regulatory or other governmental authorities. By way of example, specific topics of investigation for which the firm is engaged might include allegations of fraud, unfair management practices, harassment and discrimination in the workplace, conflicts of interest, breach of security laws and regulations, and breach of Central Bank norms.

The firm conducts its investigations and counsels generally on compliance matters in close conjunction with several areas of the firm’s practice, many of which are likely to get involved in or even be the source of origination of a compliance matter by virtue of the nature of the services they render. The principal areas of the firm most likely to work in conjunction with the Compliance Unit at any given time are: (i) mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, private equity, investment funds, and securitization, in respect of securities and financial issues; (ii) management of regulatory and environmental issues, regarding compliance; and (iii) financial crime prevention, for financial compliance. The depth of the practice areas at Pinheiro Guimarães give substantive support to the Compliance Unit in the rendering of its services.

The firm provides individualized counseling for its clients throughout all phases of drawing up, structuring, carrying out, and revising compliance programs. The firm adopts a risk-based approach to compliance, substantially in line with the approach followed by the Brazilian Central Bank and reflected in the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Program Guidelines”, and in the U.K.’s “Financial Conduct Authority Handbook”. By applying the risk-based approach in conducting audits, Pinheiro Guimarães is able to identify specific risks to which the client may be exposed and to propose appropriate control structures to mitigate or eliminate those risks.

Mechanisms for control that Pinheiro Guimarães recommends are designed to facilitate for the clients the effective management of risks, thereby resulting in a robust and comprehensive compliance program. This risk-based approach extends to the crafting and revision of codes of conduct and ethical standards, policies, procedures, and training and communication programs, as well as to channels for whistleblowing, including measures to assure confidentiality and anonymity.

Pinheiro Guimarães offers presentations as well as online and in-house training on best practices for achieving and maintaining high ethical standards together with a strong corporate culture of integrity. Those best practices extend to antibribery and corruption issues (ABC compliance), to money laundering and fraud prevention, and to combating the financing of terrorism (AML-CFT). Finally, Pinheiro Guimarães regularly advises clients on questions of privileged information, bank secrecy, and protection of data and personal identity.