COVID-19's Impact On Compliance Issues And Internal & External Investigations

COVID-19 outbreak, which was announced to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020¹, had inevitable impacts on corporate compliance processes due to the evolving business and workplace practices. In parallel with the increase in remote working, along with the psychological and financial distress on individuals emerging from the crisis, many companies have come up against a changing landscape for fraud with a rising number of fraud cases, as well as those are yet to be discovered.

As of the writing date of this article, based on the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and the several companies' decisions to postpone physical comeback to workplaces, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic appears likely to extend to the next year. Recent studies show that Turkey CFOs (67%) are concerned about the potential negative impacts of a new wave of infection on implementing return-to-work strategies². International and independent publications also provide data