Third-Party Legal and Compliance Risk
Third parties can accelerate growth, expand market reach, and provide critical capabilities, but they can also create significant legal, regulatory, operational, and reputational exposure. Taft’s Third-Party Legal and Compliance Risk practice helps companies identify, assess, and manage risk across the full third-party lifecycle, from initial onboarding and contracting through ongoing monitoring and exit.
We advise clients on practical, risk-based programs for vendors, suppliers, distributors, sales agents, consultants, customs brokers, freight forwarders, joint-venture partners, service providers, and other business intermediaries. Our lawyers combine legal analysis with commercially workable solutions tailored to each client’s industry, geographic footprint, regulatory obligations, and risk tolerance.
Our Capabilities
We assist clients with third-party risk involving:
- Anti-corruption and business integrity: Bribery, improper payments, gifts and hospitality, conflicts of interest, government official interactions, and high-risk compensation arrangements.
- Sanctions, export controls, and international trade: Sanctions and restricted-party exposure, export-control obligations, end-use and end-user risks, diversion concerns, and cross-border supply-chain and distribution relationships.
- Data privacy, cybersecurity, and technology: Third parties that access personal information, confidential data, systems, or intellectual property, including data processing, information security, incident notification, AI use, and subcontractor provisions.
- Regulatory and industry compliance: Sector-specific requirements, licensing, consumer protection obligations, government contracting rules, and other regulatory expectations applicable to outsourced or intermediary relationships.
- Labor, human rights, and supply-chain compliance: Worker classification, wage and hour, workplace safety, forced labor, modern-slavery, immigration, and responsible-sourcing risks.
- Environmental, health, safety, and product risk: Environmental compliance, hazardous material handling, workplace safety, product stewardship, supplier quality, and contractual allocation of EHS-related responsibilities.
- Financial integrity and fraud: Payment practices, billing and invoicing, fraud, money laundering, financial stability, beneficial ownership, and books-and-records controls.
- Commercial, competition, and reputational risk: Antitrust, channel partner, marketing, unfair competition, intellectual property, confidentiality, ESG, and brand risk issues arising from third-party conduct.
Services Across the Relationship Lifecycle
Our team helps clients develop and operate scalable, defensible third-party risk management processes, including:
- Third-party risk assessments, segmentation, and due diligence frameworks.
- Integrity, sanctions, ownership, adverse media, and regulatory screening.
- Review and escalation of diligence findings, red flags, and remediation plans.
- Drafting and negotiation of third-party agreements, compliance certifications, audit rights, indemnities, flow-down provisions, and termination rights.
- Development of policies, procedures, approval workflows, training, and documentation standards.
- Periodic monitoring, rescreening, audit support, investigations, and corrective action planning.
- Transactional and post-acquisition third-party compliance reviews.
- Counsel during enforcement inquiries, internal investigations, and third-party misconduct events.
Taft Total Third Party (Taft TTP)
Taft TTP is Taft’s technology-enabled solution for third-party compliance screening, due diligence, onboarding, and ongoing management. Taft TTP helps companies bring consistency, visibility, and efficiency to the third-party lifecycle through centralized information collection, risk-based review workflows, documentation, escalation, remediation, and monitoring.
Taft TTP pairs technology with experienced legal and compliance guidance. Our team helps clients evaluate screening results, assess and resolve red flags, determine appropriate remediation, and make informed decisions about whether and how to proceed with a third-party relationship.
Cost-effective compliance support: Taft TTP offers clients a scalable and cost-effective alternative to developing and maintaining a comparable in-house third-party screening and due diligence function. The platform and Taft’s legal and compliance support can help reduce the internal resources required for onboarding, diligence, documentation, monitoring, and escalation, while providing a consistent, risk-based process that grows with the business. Read more about Taft TTP here.
Practical, Integrated Counsel
Effective third-party risk management requires more than a checklist. It requires a clear understanding of how a third party operates, the authority it exercises, the markets in which it acts, the data and assets it can access, and the consequences if the relationship fails.
Taft works closely with legal, compliance, procurement, finance, information security, privacy, internal audit, and business stakeholders to help clients implement proportionate controls that protect the enterprise while achieving commercial objectives.
