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“The Department will continue to pursue guilty pleas or, if necessary, indictments against corporations - when the criminal conduct is egregious, pervasive and systemic, or when the corporation fails to implement compliance reforms.”
– Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Our Team
Scott Avelino, Special Advisor
Scott Avelino has substantial experience working with many well-known companies in their efforts to achieve the highest levels of business integrity through the effective prevention, detection and response to misconduct.Most recently, he was a Principal with the Forensic practice of KPMG LLP, where he served as the national coordinating partner of firm-wide services aimed at helping clients strengthen their corporate governance practices, ethics and compliance programs and related antifraud controls. He also chaired the global network of specialists responsible for driving innovation, thought leadership, global methodologies, training and regional deployment of ethics and integrity services across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. While at KPMG, he also played significant internal roles in helping the firm successfully resolve its deferred prosecution agreement arising out of its tax shelter matter. Among his various roles were assisting the board of directors task force established to overhaul the firm’s governance practices, interfacing with the firm’s outside monitor on the firm’s efforts to build a model ethics and compliance program, and leading the team that developed the firm’s first global code of conduct which now governs member firms in over 140 countries.
The results of Scott’s thought leadership in the field have been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, CNN and dozens of other business, government and academic venues around the world. In addition, he was among a select group of practitioners invited by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to testify on how to assess the compliance/ethics programs of organizations found to be in violation of U.S. law. This initiative culminated in amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants in November, 2004.
Scott specializes in situations involving high levels of scrutiny and sensitivity, such as:
- assessing risks of fraudulent, illegal and/or unethical acts;
- designing and evaluating corporate ethics and compliance programs relative to federal sentencing guidelines criteria and other industry frameworks;
- designing and testing entity-level and antifraud controls pursuant to Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements;
- monitoring compliance with pre-trial and related settlement agreements with the government;
- advising on compliance program needs associated with mergers, acquisitions and initial public offerings;
- providing expert witness advisory services on corporate ethics and compliance matters;
- strengthening board governance practices and oversight of business conduct risks; and
- building corporate social responsibility initiatives, supply chain integrity, and key performance indicators used in corporate responsibility and sustainability reporting.
Scott began his work in the field at the Ethics Resource Center, an influential non-profit organization that helped pioneer the field of business ethics in the United States and abroad. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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