Strategic Compliance for Communications Service Providers

We specialize in providing sound legal counsel focused on proactive risk management, business planning, and strategies designed to prevent non-compliance issues. Our expertise helps protect your business assets and profits by reducing the potential for fees, penalties, litigation, and losses before they occur. We understand the importance of achieving compliance while balancing it against the potential risks and consequences associated with managed compliance.

Why Compliance Risk Management Matters

Compliance risk management is a critical aspect of safeguarding your business. It involves evaluating, quantifying, and developing strategies and tools to effectively balance the cost of strict compliance against the risks and consequences associated with managed compliance. Our approach includes:

• Risk Mitigation: Reducing potential risks to catastrophic loss through various means, including insurance and proactive measures.
• Compliance Strategy: Creating and implementing a comprehensive risk-management strategy. This includes policies, procedures, and compliance management tools tailored to your firm's specific compliance requirements.
• Legal Guidance: Given the ever-changing regulatory landscape, consulting with a qualified telecommunications compliance lawyer is essential to protect your interests.

Understanding Compliance Risk

Compliance risk entails comparing the potential cost of fines and fees for non-compliance with the cost of adhering to regulatory or tax requirements. For instance, if strict compliance in a jurisdiction costs $1,000 per year, but your revenue in that jurisdiction is only $100 per year, strict compliance may seem financially impractical. However, if the regulatory body enforces compliance with a fine or fee of $10,000 per violation, the risk of non-compliance becomes significant.

While strict compliance might impact your annual profit and loss, non-compliance could pose even greater financial risks. Our role as legal experts is to ensure your path to compliance is both affordable and sustainable, should non-compliance issues arise.

Supporting Strategic Decision Making

Our telecommunications lawyers will perform a comprehensive risk analysis tailored to your company's goals, market position, size, geographic reach, and products/services. This analysis provides you with a prioritized picture of your compliance risk, including potential consequences and strategies for prevention.

Primary Risks of Non-Compliance

Non-compliance can lead to various risks, including:

Risks of Over-Collection of Taxes and Fees

• Customer complaints
• Inflated pricing that drives customers to competitors
• Risk of penalties
• Requirements to issue refunds

Risks of Under-Collection of Taxes and Fees:

• Audit and penalties
• Collection demands by regulators
• Damage valuation in M&A situations
• Damage valuation during bank financing

Compliance Risk Management Solutions

Once your path to compliance is established, we collaborate with our partner firm, The Commpliance Group, to provide monthly reporting on areas where your business approaches compliance thresholds. By monitoring your billing and tax data, we can alert you to review your compliance risk strategy and make necessary adjustments to mitigate risks proactively.