Regulatory Updates Newsletter & Library

Businesses should take a structured approach to compliance by focusing on the high risk items. Once high risk items have been managed, Nimonik recommends a thorough analysis of potentially applicable regulations, standards, and organizing requirements based on your organizational structure.

Regulations change every day. To ensure compliance, we recommend receiving regulatory updates on a monthly basis as a minimum. In high risk industries such as mining, oil and gas or chemical manufacturing – weekly reviews of changes is suggested.

A commercial regulatory update service such as Nimonik is the best option to stay on top of changes. Due to the volume of changes and the variety of information sources, staying up to speed without a commercial solution can be a challenge. A single missed update or staff turnover at your organization can lead to costly compliance issues.

Regulatory updates are only part of the solution. To leverage these changes, they should be integrated into a legal register or obligations register. This register or list of applicable documents should then be ranked for risk and you should link internal controls and assessments to the relevant documents. Only once you have made the linkage between compliance requirements and your systems can you safely say you have controlled your compliance risk.

Change creates opportunity and risk. By staying up to speed, your business may be able to identify market opportunities created by changing regulations. You may also pick up on risks that will affect your products, procedures or business. The sooner you know about a change, the more likely it is that you can capitalize on its potential.

It is critical that the right people within your organization see the regulatory updates. If the newsletters and updates are not widely distributed, it is likely that items will slip through the cracks. In addition to distributing the newsletter, you should ensure that your organization has a process in place to ensure people actually read and analyze the information and provide insights and actions to the relevant parts. Information without action is not worth much, information with action can alter the course of your business.

Regulations, laws and standards come from a wide variety of sources that are regularly changing. The best option is to purchase access to a robust commercial product such as Nimonik to gain access to a full database of regulatory documents and receive alerts. Each government, agency and standards bodies operate differently. Only with a commercial product such as Nimonik can you ensure you have captured all of your requirements.

In high risk industries (mining, oil and gas), we recommend a weekly review. In medium risk industries (manufacturing), we recommend a monthly review. In low risk industries (offices), we recommend a quarterly review. Each company is different and it is critical that you review the changes based on your business activities, internal resources and compliance burden.

It is important to cross check any source with other sources. If you use a commercial regulatory database and update service such as Nimonik, it is still important to validate the data with government websites, consultants or other reliable sources. There is no magical solution to all your compliance needs, an organization inevitably needs to track and monitor data in a variety of places and formats.

Some industry associations operate internationally, but most are national in nature. It is important to note that updates produced by industry associations tend to focus on the biggest and most important changes for that specific industry. The updates published by associations tend to omit smaller regulatory changes or changes that apply to all businesses. In general, you should not rely exclusively on updates from industry associations as they are rarely complete or fast.