November 1, 2004 Federal Sentencing Guidelines Deadline and Sarbanes-Oxley Affect Private and Public Companies

November 1, 2004, is the date that stricter Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations are scheduled to go into effect. These guidelines define the essential elements of a corporate compliance program. All U.S. corporations, regardless of whether they are public or private, are required to have compliance plans if they wish to receive the benefit of prosecutorial discretion from a federal prosecutor, or sentencing mitigation from a federal judge. The primary purpose of a compliance program, of course, is to avoid these situations altogether by preventing violations of the law from occurring.