Companies listed on US stock exchanges typically adopt ethics codes that require employees to make such anonymous reports if they learn of any suspicious behavior, to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. These policies and procedures are usually implemented throughout the company, and that's where the trouble begins. SOX's anonymous hotlines and mandatory reporting rules are anathema to many Europeans especially to those in Germany and France because such mandatory reporting via anonymous hotlines smacks to them of Nazi- and Soviet-style authoritarianism, with neighbor spying on neighbor. So how do multinational companies successfully meet those competing demands?