Does compliance really get involved in 33 areas, as a recent survey asks?

A friend sent me word of a compliance function survey being conducted jointly by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Compliance Week. One question asks “To what extent is your compliance function directly responsible for or involved in the following areas?” It then asks for each area about whether the compliance team is “directly responsible,” “somewhat involved,” “not involved,” and “not applicable.”

What dumfounded me was that the survey proceeds to list no less than 33 (thirty-three) areas! Many of them have law written all over them: Fair Competition, Anti-Corruption, Fair Employment, Privacy and Confidentiality, M&A Due Diligence, Intellectual Property, Insider Trading, and more. My forte, admittedly, being law departments not compliance functions, this overlap surprised me. The survey, by those steeped in compliance, certainly underlines the untidy understanding of the respective groups’ roles.