Joe Murphy (joemurphyccep@gmail.com) is a Senior Advisor at Compliance Strategists, SCCE’s Director of Public Policy, and Editor-in-Chief of Compliance & Ethics Professional magazine.

Here is the situation you confront. Allegations of misconduct are made about a senior official. The allegations go back to conduct over the course of four decades. You schedule an investigation. The official then resigns, because they cannot do their job and still “fight this battle.” As a compliance and ethics professional, what do you do?

(A) Say, “Oh, they resigned, so there is nothing left to do”? or