Even the best-run banks may, from time to time, fail to comply with legal requirements, good business practices, or even ethical standards. Sometimes banks even fail to live up to the standards they set out for themselves. But banks can create processes to monitor their compliance with the law and their own established codes of conduct and policies, so that compliance is part of their core business operations ensuring that non-compliance is quickly discovered, and that remedial action contributes to the success of the business.

In the Sarbanes-Oxley environment, banks face increased financial, legal and public relations risk if they fail to comply with the appropriate laws and rules and the standards that apply to them and their stockholders. Banks are under increasing scrutiny from regulators, their customers, and investors, all of whom judge the bank by different standards. Corporate governance programs help a bank establish a process to establish the right standards--and monitor the bank's progress in meeting them.

Our corporate governance team offers clients a combination of substantive legal expertise and extensive experience with all aspects of corporate governance programs.

Together, we have:

• Developed a corporate governance matrix to provide compliance overview for board oversight

• Assisted clients in developing a Code of Ethics targeted to the banking industry

• Reviewed and revised audit committee charters to provide best practices