Mike Davidson Quotes

Standards violated are better than no standards at all.

Our goal is to set the gold standard when it comes to compliance.

Corporate governance should be done more through principles than rules.

We've done all the work that needs to be done on the inside to make sure there's no malfeasance inside Chrysler.

In general, we believe in regulation - just as long as it is fair and balanced.

A lot of people think if you just had more process and more compliance -- checks and doublechecks and so forth -- you could create a better result in the world. Well, Berkshire has had practically no process. We had hardly any internal auditing until they forced it on us. We just try to operate in a seamless web of deserved trust and be careful whom we trust.

We followed the law, we follow our policies, we self-report, we identify problems, we fix them. And I think we do a great job, and we do, I think, more to protect people's civil liberties and privacy than they'll ever know.

Competition leads both drug companies and private regulators to be trustworthy. If they are not trustworthy, they die.

We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

Globalization has made multinationals more accountable, and accountable to whomever has the highest standards, rather than the lowest ones.

We needed to be uncompromising [with our workforce], to expect 100 percent of our employees to comply 100 percent of the time with complex and ever-changing government mandates. Striving to comply with every law does not mean agreeing with every law. But, even when faced with laws we think are counter-productive, we must first comply. Only then, from a credible position, can we enter into a dialogue with regulatory agencies to demonstrate alternatives that are more beneficial. If these efforts fail, we can then join with others in using education and/or political efforts to change the law

If we don’t enforce the regulations we have, these conversations are useless.

We are constantly auditing our supply chain. Making sure that safety standards are - are, you know, are the highest. We're making sure that working conditions are the highest.

In any given day, our administration has about 2 million employees, and things happen. We put in process procedures to make sure if there has been any wrongdoing, there will be appropriate consequences, and we will move on.

We follow highest level of corporate governance, which is in line with a global company like ours.

The lesson is the importance of never becoming untethered to oversight and accountability.

I fully support accountability and transparency.

Preventing staff from having too much influence and decision-making power is fairly easy. Appropriate procedural safeguards can be installed to prevent staff from, among other things, self-dealing, making decisions in an isolated manner, or committing funds without oversight.

The most important thing is there is a foundation and an accountability to a system.

Obviously, flagrant things have to be called. There are rules. You have got to play to the rules, no question.

I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.

My goal for reform is not necessarily to pass laws but to make sure the laws are being followed.

I'm a true believer that you have a moral obligation to keep your employees honest, and that is why you have controls, so I'm never tempted or put in a position where I could do something to defraud my employer.

Now where people are - at least the people I talk to - they are focused on issues of trust. Accountability also comes up, to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

You have more independent eyes scrutinizing the decision-making and financial statements of companies.