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Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor Provides Companies with Custom Roadmap to Third-Party Due Diligence
[May 20, 2013]

Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor Provides Companies with Custom Roadmap to Third-Party Due Diligence


NEW YORK --(Business Wire)--

Kroll, the global leader in risk mitigation and response solutions, announced today the launch of the Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor, a new anti-bribery and corruption solution that enables businesses across all industries to assess the risks posed by their global business relationships, including suppliers, distributors, advisors, brokers, agents and joint-venture partners, to inform future due diligence efforts.

The launch of Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor coincides with a heightened focus on compliance with anti-bribery and corruption measures by corporate boards - itself a reaction to the increasing threat of legislative and regulatory penalties related to anti-corruption rules, most notably the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act.

"At the end of the day, you have to know who you're in business with," said Lonnie Keene, Managing Director for Kroll Advisory Solutions. "Regulators expect due diligence efforts to be commensurate with the risks, so not every business needs to perform exhaustive due diligence on every third party. This presents the dilemma of knowing what level of due diligence to apply and to which relationships."

Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor provides companies with a cost-effective way to determine which third parties present the highest level of corruption risk to their organizations, so they are in a better position to:

  • Establish a clear and consistent risk-based approach to due diligence by focusing on the relationships that pose the greatest threat
  • Understand the relative risks associated with business relationships
  • Make the case to corporate decision makers for building an informed compliance program
  • Enter into new markets and business relationships with certainty
  • Avoid undesirable financial or legal consequences
  • Protect business continuity, brand integrity and bottom line



Built on Kroll's 40 years of responding to and investigating bribery and fraud risks around the world, Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor calculates a profile for third-party relationships using 10 risk-based attributes - such as country of operation, annual revenue, industry, government involvement and more. Kroll's proprietary technology first scores each characteristic then weights it against other attributes based on level of importance. Once the ratings are established and the overall results are generated, each third-party relationship is categorized by level of risk - high, medium and low - and actionable recommendations are provided for performing other due diligence services based on those results.

"A lot of companies have very good intentions of doing a thorough job looking at their third parties," said Violet Ho, Senior Managing Director for Kroll's practice in greater China. "But ultimately when you are a very large organization with more than 10,000 vendors, it's not financially viable. You do not really have the time or resources to look deep into each and every one of them."


The launch of Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor follows the release of the 2013 Anti-Bribery & Corruption Benchmarking Report, released by Compliance Week and Kroll at the 8th Annual Compliance Week Conference in Washington, D.C. on May 20. The report found that an overwhelming number of businesses (60%) indicate they conduct an enterprise-wide assessment of bribery and corruption risk less than once a year, or never at all.

For more information on Kroll 3rd Party Risk Assessor and Kroll's comprehensive spectrum of due diligence solutions, visit www.krollcompliance.com.

About Kroll

Kroll, the global leader in risk mitigation and response, delivers a wide range of solutions that span investigations, due diligence, compliance, cyber security and physical security. Clients partner with Kroll for the highest-value intelligence and insight to drive the most confident decisions about protecting their companies, assets and people.

Kroll is recognized for its expertise, with 40 years of experience meeting the demands of dynamic businesses and their environments around the world. Kroll's advisory solutions business is headquartered in New York with offices in 29 cities across 17 countries. The business has a multidisciplinary team of 700 employees.


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