Asking the Tough Questions: Ethics Investigations
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“The bank robber expects to be arrested, it's an occupational hazard. The bank teller who embezzled does not; they think they are smarter than everyone else.” Wendy Evans, CFE, ACFE Regent and senior manager of ethics core programs and services at Lockheed Martin opened her session at the 34th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference explaining that she originally had hesitancy when she first began investigating fraud, thinking it would just consist of boring cases, but as evidenced by her quote, she quickly realized that white-collar crime was vastly different from her experience with typical police work. In her session “Ethics and the Investigative Process, From Intake to Outcome,” Wendy walked attendees through internal ethics investigations, best practices when conducting them and common mistakes made.
Best Practices
Wendy stressed the responsibility and authority of fraud examiners in ethics investigations, the trust that their companies place on them to educate, prevent and investigate fraud. With this responsibility on our shoulders, we can improve our processes and support employees with some resources and tools including:
Brochures for reporting parties and witnesses on the investigation process, what to expect and what to do.
Retaliation-monitoring program information.
Similar brochures for subjects in an investigation explaining it is not a criminal case, next steps and reiterating anti-retaliation practices.
User-friendly policies that employees can readily access about reporting concerns.
Feedback surveys to improve processes and potential help employees feel safer reporting a potential problem.
So, with these resources in place, where do we begin with an ethics investigation? Evans stressed the importance of doing your research before jumping into scheduling interviews with witnesses or subjects. Are they a part of a union so they’ll need a representative with them in interviews? Are they involved in other investigations or is there a history of cases that weren’t substantive? Conducting thorough research will save you time and better prepare you for interviews where prior knowledge would have led you down a different path in your fact-finding.
When you’re speaking with a witness or reporter about a concern, it's important to actively listen, as with any conversation. Evans said in her experience overseeing new investigators they have a tendency to go into an interview with a list of questions, and while you should be sure those questions are covered, you do not want to make a reporter feel unheard by repeating questions they may have already answered. This also goes for clarifying questions, allowing interviewees to continue down a different path to information that may not have been on your to-do list of questions. “Don’t let people label behavior. Make them describe it,” Evans emphasized, explaining that they don’t know the lingo, you do, and you are fact-finding and fact-checking. Explain your process to the reporter after you’ve conducted your interview because we take for granted what we do and our knowledge of the system. When you can’t disclose information due to privacy laws, let them know the appropriate action was taken. That action may be evident to you, or it may not, but they will appreciate knowing you investigated their report.
During the session, Evans showed video examples of an ethics investigation, including the initial report, interviews with witnesses and the meeting with the subject of the report. The example case was an employee reporting that their co-worker was consistently leaving work early, leaving the employee to pick up the co-worker’s slack, and then there were social media posts from the co-worker with photos obviously not taken on the job. These videos offered more interview tips for attendees including:
Addressing unusual activity. In the interview with the subject, there was a person in the room, and they were recording the session. The ethics team member asked them to leave the room and explained the company’s policy of not allowing recordings.
Ensuring that you can share your screen if you need to present evidence. In the call with the subject, the investigator showed evidence of his false timekeeping practices.
Actively listening and asking clarifying questions. The subject would pretend not to know about instances of him not being at work and was asked “Could you explain where you were? What may have been preventing you from being at work?” and other fact-finding questions.
Thanking the party for cooperation and any admissions, if applicable.
Asking the tough questions and using the funnel approach (using broad questions and whittling down to more clarifying and direct questions).
Finally, when presenting your findings, Evans recommends the BLUF approach – bottom-line up front – and then further elaborate. Be sure to avoid speculation and opinions because fraud examiners are fact finders, and don’t decide what actions to take. Continue retaliation monitoring after concluding the investigation because retaliation often takes place further down the road. However, Evans said that in her 35 years of experience she’s only had one new case open due to retaliation.
