A conceptually rich model of business process compliance

TLDR

The paper extends prior work to characterize multiple aspects of business process compliance. The authors introduce a formal, conceptually rich language for reparational obligations, normalize legal norms, embed normative constraints into business process models, and present an algorithm for compliance checking with runtime and design‑time considerations.

Abstract

In this paper we extend the preliminary work developed elsewhere and investigate how to characterise many aspects of the compliance problem in business process modeling. We first define a formal and conceptually rich language able to represent, and reason about, chains of reparational obligations of various types. Second, we devise a mechanism for normalising a system of legal norms. Third, we specify a suitable language for business process modeling able to automate and optimise business procedures and to embed normative constraints. Fourth, we develop an algorithm for compliance checking and discuss some computational issues regarding the possibility of checking compliance runtime or of enforcing it at design time.