Board member training in ethics and compliance, often conducted by the general counsel

The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics disseminated a seven-question survey to its members regarding board training. The Society got back 171 responses and published a summary, written by a partner of Jeff Kaplan, one of my guest bloggers, in its Compliance and Ethics Mag., Vol. 6, June 2009 at 36. Seventy percent of the companies that responded provide ethics and compliance training for their board members, most frequently once a year.

As to who conducts the training of the board members, one out of five said it was their general counsel (id. at 38). Outside counsel did the training for three percent of the companies. The three topics for which board training was most commonly provided are “compliance program oversight” (70% checked that), “conflicts of interest” (65%), and “general ethics” (54%).