Approximately 80 percent of companies are not ready for government or regulatory investigations, according to a new survey.
The online survey conducted by Deloitte during a recent webcast asked 1,100 executives for their thoughts on government and regulatory investigations. Even though 24.3 percent of the respondents feel the risk of a government investigation is higher today than a year ago, only 20.8 percent of executives say their organizations are “very ready” to handle a government or regulatory investigation
Nevertheless, 26.5 percent of the executives surveyed say their organizations have already been the subject of a government or regulatory investigation in the past two years.
In addition, only 5.6 percent of the respondents’ organizations place the responsibility for conducting preliminary investigations with the board of directors or the board audit committee. Most of the others hold internal audit committees (20.9 percent) and general counsel (18.6 percent) responsible.
Nearly 60 percent surveyed think that self-reporting the results of an internal investigation will help mitigate the repercussions of a potential federal investigation.
