Facebook now has its first chief compliance officer amid increased scrutiny from federal and worldwide regulators and competition from other social media giants.
The company has hired Henry Moniz to serve in the role, reports The Wall Street Journal. He is leaving ViacomCBS Inc., and will start leading Facebook's global compliance team on Feb. 8.
Moniz is reporting to Jennifer Newstead, Facebook's general counsel, and to a board committee that oversees audit and risk, according to the social media company.
His role will be to help Facebook to continue enhancing global compliance and risk management while promoting the highest legal and ethical standards at the company, the company said.
Until now, Facebook had a compliance group but not a dedicated chief compliance officer. Newstead said in a statement, "the current regulatory environment demands strong compliance leadership, and Henry will play a key role in driving our ongoing commitment to continually strengthen our global compliance and risk management functions."
His hiring comes after a $5 billion settlement in 2019 with the Federal Trade Commission concerning privacy issues. That required creating more layers of compliance while requiring Facebook to restructure its privacy oversight approach.
The company is also facing compliance challenges from more strict Internet privacy rules going into effect in California in 2023, as well as data compliance requirements that will continue with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation.
Meanwhile, the FTC and a group of attorneys general filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook in 2020, with the company potentially facing more regulatory problems when those cases are resolved.
Muniz was the chief compliance officer and chief audit officer at Viacom before it merged with CBS. He has also worked as a partner at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP, which is now Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, and as an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami and Boston, reports Facebook.