"Compliance": a new determining factor in negotiation

In Argentina, Law 27.401, known as the "Compliance" Law, has been in effect for some time. Does it refer to strict compliance with the law? Or does it refer to compliance with the company's internal regulations?

Everything seems to indicate that “ compliance” cannot be interpreted as the strict adherence to the law, nor to the internal provisions of the company, but that fundamentally it must be associated with “ethical” conduct.

Clearly, compliance is placing emphasis on the "reputation" of companies, not just their financial results. From this perspective, it demands attention to a series of internal procedures aimed at preventing, detecting, and correcting irregularities of all kinds.

In this context, negotiations between companies and/or between companies and the State can no longer escape the concept of compliance. No negotiation, however effective its results may seem, can disregard a certain ethical consideration and the emphasis this new law has placed on the table. This is probably not new to many SMEs and large companies, as they have already established Codes of Ethics and specific compliance monitoring programs from their inception.

But the truth is that the evolution of modern societies demands the strictest knowledge of each company's policies when opening the negotiation process as an essential point for the clean and effective closing of a comprehensive agreement, beyond the technical result desired by the parties.

New winds are blowing through the internal and external landscapes of businesses. And the concept of "effective negotiation" cannot be left out of them.