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INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE CODES:
REFLECTIONS ON THEIR SIGNIFICANCE
James Fanto*
ABSTRACT
This Article explores the significance of international compliance codes.
After describing compliance and reviewing compliance program activities
and structures that have become the standard compliance mode, it looks at
major U.S. and international compliance codes that helped establish and
reinforce that model. It then explores reasons for the successful international
diffusion of compliance, as evidenced by the international compliance codes.
It particularly highlights that the compliance codes have followed a well-
trodden path of international codes of business practices, which is to present
them as a kind of neutral business technology. It discusses the main reason
for this presentation, academic criticism of it, and the persistence of this
approach despite that criticism. It observes that compliance practitioners in
large international organizations have an interest in embracing the codes,
which validate their own position and role in their organization. The Article
offers additional reflections on the success of and the lack of opposition to
the international compliance codes. It particularly emphasizes that
compliance practices presented as a neutral, technical kind of expertise
could serve any social or economic purpose in a given local setting, which
allows compliance to be embraced in countries with different cultural and
economic orientations. The Article concludes by observing that, while the
international compliance codes raise the issue about the convergence of
compliance practices, through their success and generality they may obscure
differences in compliance orientations in countries.
I. INTRODUCTION
All signs point to an international triumph of compliance in business
firms and other organizations. There are authoritative international
codifications of compliance practices.1 There is widespread adoption of
compliance requirements for organizations in transnational settings like the
European Union (EU).2 Compliance has become an accepted part of
business life in organizations around the developed world.
* Gerald Baylin Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. © All rights reserved. I thank participants
in Brooklyn Law School's symposium, Guiding Norms and Conduct: A Workshop on
Compliance, Miriam Baer, Robert Bird, Katrice Bridges Copeland, Claire Hill, Edward Janger,
Jennifer Pacella, Nizan Packin, and Stephen Park for comments on a presentation that was a basis
for this Article.
1. See, e.g., INTERNATIONAL STANDARD, COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS-
REQUIREMENTS WITH GUIDANCE FOR USE, ISO 37301 (2021) [hereinafter ISO COMPLIANCE
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS].
2. See, e.g., EUROPEAN SECURITIES AND MARKETS AUTHORITY, FINAL REPORT: GUIDELINES
ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE MIFID II COMPLIANCE FUNCTION REQUIREMENTS ESMA 35-36-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/broojcfc19&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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