LOW comp 3-2024 004 - Flipbook - Page 24
TONES EXPERTPANEL
From “low compliance” to
“all compliance” to “renewed
compliance.”
Telia a decade after the
big corruption scandal.
The following text is a personal reflection of the lessons learned and the journey
traveled from crisis and recovery to future and hope.
B
ackground
The Uzbek corruption scandal
that erupted in 2012 chocked the
compliance world and resulted in
a 1-billion-dollar settlement in 2017. From
then on, all eyes were on Telia. Telia invested
heavily in compliance and took drastic measures, including divesting from the Eurasia
markets. The new Compliance department
worked hard with implementing a more
ethical business practice. A Code of conduct
was implemented focusing on how not to act
at work and all employees had to undergo
training in the matter. Everyone at Telia learned how to behave at work and how to be
compliant. It was a colossal work which was
undertaken with remarkable success.
well as the organization as such were weary
from all the negative stress and compliance
demands that had been put on them. Everyone had to do extensive training in the
Code of Conduct. Two hours of “don´t do
this at work”, was enough to create some
exhaustion. There were dilemma games and
meetings and most of it was great, but understandably, this must have been overwhelming, at least for some people. When we
started, we received messages from employees who begged us to shorten the e-learning.
The two hours of training, in a long list of
other trainings was overwhelming. The training also created some strong feelings. As
someone put it, “it feels like we are being
punished for something we did not do.”
Compliance hangover
Focus on compliance was high. However,
as the years passed, compliance fatigue hit
Telia. As Telia reached an agreement with
the US authorities, there was a feeling that
the company needed to refocus on getting
back to business as usual. Both employees as
Subsequently, compliance was lifted
off the red carpet, but still needed its
proper place.
It was about at this point, that we were hired to team up Telia´s new compliance team.
Compliance was to merge with risk, and a
new unit was formed with the idea of inte-
24 Compliance Nytt
grating governance, risk, ethics, and compliance. So, we arrived at a company which at
that time, had had some time to breathe, to
recuperate from the scandal and from old
sins, but were we could feel we needed to
bring the subject back on the agenda, or, as
our Finish wise colleague said, “it is time to
pick up the ball again”. It was time to renew
compliance.
The path to renewed compliance
Our first educational road trip on anti-bribery & corruption started with us holding a
short recap, what happened, what did we do,
and why are we here to teach you this again?
We were advised not to bring the old scandal
back up, “let old skeletons be” but we decided to ignore that advise. The market most
certainly had not forgotten. Every seminar
we participated in brought up Telia as the
bad example and we realized that we will
always have to live with this past, so to avoid
talking about it was just plainly wrong.
