Successful premiere

5,000 compliance professionals sign up for the European Compliance & Ethics Conference / ECEC Award 2020 goes to Le Groupe La Poste

DGAP-Media / 08.10.2020 / 13:11 The eyes of the entire European compliance community were on Munich this week. The first virtual European Compliance & Ethics Conference (ECEC) took place at the EQS Group's Munich headquarters where more than 25 experts from all over Europe joined to present and discuss exciting compliance and ethics topics in keynote speeches, presentations, national breakout sessions and a closing panel discussion. Of the 5,000 compliance professionals from across the globe who registered for the online conference, 2,700 attended live; all other registrants can view the ECEC at a later date using the replay function. Achim Weick, CEO and founder of EQS Group, was overwhelmed by the huge response: "We knew that in this industry, which is still young in Europe, there was a desire to exchange ideas internationally - but we never in our wildest dreams expected such huge interest."

The ECEC, which right from its debut has established itself as one of the largest conferences in the industry, received a high accolade from none other than Professor Christian Strenger, also known in Germany as THE corporate governance expert. In his keynote speech, he compared the event in terms of size and professionalism with the annual general meeting of a Dax corporation.

One focus of the ECEC was the topic of whistleblowing. In an interview with Dan McCrum, the investigative journalist at the Financial Times, who in his series of articles entitled "House of Wirecard" uncovered the accounting fraud of the Dax group of the same name, it became clear what reprisals whistleblowers can face if they are not protected. "Therefore companies should not see regulations like the EU Whistleblower Directive as a burden. In the end, companies benefit if they accept anonymous reports, because in doing so they meet the high ethical standards of their business partners and also their employees", explained Marcus Sultzer, Board Member at EQS Group.