Can Import/Export Compliance People Be Successful in the Business Ethics & Compliance Field?
- May 31
- 3 min read
Updated: May 31
Dear Import/Export Compliance Manager,
I’m a longtime trade compliance person who, due to a few factors, is looking for a new job. I see there a few jobs out there in the compliance and ethics space. Do you think trade compliance people can be successful in that field?
Unbribable In Utah
Dear Unbribable,
Great questions! Bottom line upfront: ‘ol Import/Export Compliance Manager thinks the area of compliance & ethics is a significant challenge for trade compliance people, though not an unconquerable one. And oh, the potential for stories about employees violating company policies and the (drum roll) Code of Conduct! Let’s do this!
So first off, let’s define ‘compliance and ethics’. The Import/Export Compliance Manager thinks of the word ‘compliance’ like the words ‘engineer’ or ‘elf’: there’s all different kinds. Chemical engineers, electrical engineers, structural engineers, wood elves, dark elves, umm...you get the picture. Same for compliance. There’s contracts compliance, human resources compliance, environmental health & safety compliance, compliance with customer-specific requirements; really, anywhere you have to follow something formal in writing is compliance. So the Import/Export Compliance Manager prefers the name ‘Business Ethics & Compliance’, as it is more specific than just ‘Compliance’.
What is Business Ethics & Compliance, then? It can be summed up as ensuring that the entity and its employees are ‘doing business the right way’. That’s sounds simple but what’s the ‘right way’ and who defines it? Like immoral behavior, it depends on who you ask. A good exercise is to open a company’s code of conduct and look for the summary. Pepsico has one of the better ones that the Import/Export Compliance Manager has read. It states that “Our Global Code of Conduct is the foundation of our commitment to ethical excellence.” Sounds like something we can all get behind, right?
Well ok Smarty, now define ‘ethical’. Let’s use an example: one of the company’s U.S. sales representatives, while trying to close a million dollar sale to a potential customer, takes the customer out to a very expensive dinner. As in $500 expensive. Steak, fine wine, the works. The customer’s company has no restrictions on the receipt of such gratuities. Is this unethical? It’s not breaking any laws. In fact, for plenty of companies this is normal business. But for others, this is not. The Import/Export Compliance Manager has seen as low as $25 limits on gifts. Referring back to Pepsico’s Code Of Conduct, read page 25 and see how fraught with risk a simple gift can be. And that’s just in the Code Of Conduct; there is also a separate Global Business Gifts Policy to refer to and a special form when giving gifts to a government official.
Now multiply that across all of the other areas that might be under Business Ethics & Compliance’s scope:
Entertainment (such as taking a client to a professional sporting event)
Community engagement (ex. sponsorships)
Conflict of interest (think supplier selection in Procurement and hiring practices in Human Resources, for example)
Discrimination and harassment
Insider trading
At least in the world of import/export compliance, the perception is that most everyone is being held to the same set of rules and the rules are quite black and white (i.e. no one, not even the CEO, can issue an incorrect HTS Code). In Business Ethics & Compliance, there may be a perception, whether true or not, that executives may not be held to the standards of most employees. This is not helped by high-level government officials, whether elected or appointed, committing acts in broad daylight that appear to be highly unethical and not facing any impactful negative consequences under the law.
And lastly, we import/export compliance professionals can always rely on a key concept: most of what we do ends up on paper, filed with the government. Think customs declarations and export declarations. No one is reporting to the government the $300 bottle of wine Mohammed in Sales gave to a customer as a holiday gift or Cindy in Logistics being given concert tickets by the incumbent logistics service provider. Sure, those can be perceived as unethical, depending on who you ask, but they are also most likely quite legal. Talk to anyone in Sales and they’ll tell you that such practices are quite commonplace, even extending to paying for someone’s travel to and attendance at a major sporting event.
There are a lot more nuances to this world than can fit in a pithy advice column, so check out some of the below resources to really get into it. Long story short, Business Ethics & Compliance is a different kettle of fish; you will have to adjust, and hard.
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