Disruptions and distractions related to the COVID-19 outbreak might have caused some executive teams and corporate legal departments to shift focus away from fraud-related risks and compliance, even as those risks are expected to ramp up over the next year. 

“Businesses are deciding when and how they can come back to work. They’re taking a lot of time and energy and a certain level of creativity to figure out how to do that. And so it’s really easy to begin to ignore the basics around compliance,” said Don Fancher, an Atlanta-based principal at Deloitte and the U.S. national and global leader for the firm’s forensic advisory services.