Compliance Stuff

  Managing conflicts of interest is a big part of any corporate compliance officer’s job. Today we have a fascinating glimpse of how complicated that work can be, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and its detailed account of how the now-former Kohl’s CEO Ashley Buchanan sent company business to his girlfriend. You probably remember the original story, which first hit the headlines on May 1. That was the day the  $16 billion retail chain fired Buchanan , who had arrived as CEO only four months earlier, because Buchanan had “directed the company to engage in vendor transactions that involved undisclosed conflicts of interest.” It soon became clear that the conflict  was Buchanan steering consulting and business contracts to Chandra Holt  — a former colleague from Walmart, an accomplished business executive in her own right, and Buchanan’s romantic partner for years. Lots of people in the ethics and compliance community have praised Kohl’s board for its commitment to ...

  Chatbots are likely to lead to a new wave of class action lawsuits. This is how are we helping our clients get ready. Claims include: Contemporaneous recording by the chat provider Chat provider uses the c hat transcripts to train and improve its AI Chat provider analyzes the chat to make determinations regarding the emotional state of the individual Causes of action: CIPA / wiretapping Invasion of Privacy Intrusion upon seclusion Quasi contract Things to consider: If you are using a third party to power your chat interactions, you must review the agreement with them and understand their role. Are they using any data for their own purposes? Could this be considered a “sale” or a “deceptive/unfair” practice? What is the AI involved? If AI is involved for behavior (emotion) analysis, this could be actionable “profiling” under data privacy laws and may require: DPIA, expanded disclosure etc. Disclose to your users that they are speaking with a robot and that a third party has acce...