Long before government guidelines and regulations mandated “effective” ethics and compliance programs, Global Compliance recognized the need for a confidential and anonymous means of reporting misconduct and noncompliance. For this reason, we introduced our hotline service in 1981. It was the industry’s original compliance reporting hotline and was targeted to defense contractors wishing to disclose fraud and other forms of wrongdoing.

The introduction of the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1987 spurred demand for our service. By this time, corporations also began to realize they could enhance their core business, along with mitigating risk and liability, by implementing a means for employees to report corporate malfeasance. Our client base grew substantially and our business expanded beyond the original hotline service. A series of acquisitions ensued, the most significant of which was our acquisition by acclaimed security specialist, Pinkerton, in 1992.

During the mid 1990s, we introduced additional product and service lines including Evaluation & Validation and Communications & Training, both of which complemented our original core hotline business. This time period also saw the introduction of additional federal regulation specific to certain key industries.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, the spotlight continued to shine on ethics and compliance issues as a result of several highly publicized corporate scandals. Legislation was introduced, most specifically the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which governed how public companies and accounting firms must deal with corporate governance, financial disclosure, and the practice of public accounting. Amendments to the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines followed and spelled out in greater detail the components of an “effective” ethics and compliance program, as well as penalties for non-compliance.

Recognizing the potential for growth given these cultural and regulatory developments, we completed a successful management buyout from Pinkerton, Inc. and launched as an independent entity, Global Compliance, in September 2003.