4. Key elements supporting the internal investigation process according to ISO 37008

4.1 Resources required

ISO 37008 stipulates that sufficient resources must be allocated to the internal investigation process to ensure its effectiveness and compliance with the aforementioned principles, such as objectivity, impartiality, and independence. The resources required to conduct an internal investigation can be significant and are not always easy to anticipate: the duration of an internal investigation, the scope of the internal investigation (when an investigation begins, it may reveal more serious breaches than initially anticipated, which may lead to a longer investigation).

It is difficult to define in absolute terms how much an internal investigation costs. It depends on the areas of expertise, and it is possible to give a set of illustrative...