Articles | Compliance Week – Page 282
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Parsing the Role of the New Compliance Counsel
Image: Now that the Justice Department has named Hui Chen, former global head of anti-bribery and corruption at Standard Chartered Bank, as its first-ever compliance counsel, corporations under investigation by the department can expect a more nuanced analysis of their compliance programs. Inside, we review what Chen has disclosed so ...
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Achieving a Unified View of Financial Crime Risk
Increased regulatory scrutiny and the sting of billions in fines and penalties resulting from misconduct have prompted many financial firms to pour money into their compliance programs—investments that may be in vain without a unified view of risk. The tech challenges to build that view are considerable, but not impossible ...
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Disclosure Update: How Companies Are Tackling Comp Rules
The Dodd-Frank Act brims with new disclosure demands regarding executive compensation. Slowly but surely—emphasis on slowly—the SEC has been issuing rules on clawbacks, pay for performance, and the dreaded pay ratio rule. This week, we look at those three measures and what companies have done so far to comply with ...
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Defense Dept. Steps Up Standards on IT Supply Chain Risk
Image: The Defense Department is taking a harder look at supply chain risks posed by government contractors who provide IT products and services, so compliance officers at those businesses should prepare to review how supply chain risks might affect eligibility to bid on future contracts. “This fits into the government’s ...
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FASB Ideas on Materiality Reform Draw Heat, Questions
Image: An effort to align the accounting world’s definition of materiality with how the idea is widely understood in legal circles is sparking a fierce debate in corporate accounting circles, with potentially big consequences for financial reporting. “More information or more disclosure is better than less, in general,” said Damon ...
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Connected Medical Systems, HIPAA Audits Coming in 2016
Image: Inspectors at the Department of Health & Human Services are going to spend 2016 studying the security protocols for medical devices and electronic health records, which means compliance officers in the healthcare field should make sure your policies and controls can pass muster. Also on deck are more HIPAA ...
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SEC’s Next Move on Conflict Minerals Rule Could Open a Pandora’s Box
The SEC finds itself yet again at a legal crossroads concerning its embattled Conflict Minerals Rule. One path leads to the Supreme Court; the other, a retreat from a cornerstone of the rule’s disclosure requirements. At stake is not just the Conflict Minerals Rule alone, but potentially a wide range ...
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As Companies Prep for Proxy Season, No-Action Conundrums Abound
Image: Companies preparing for proxy season face a profound change in how the SEC views the exclusion of shareholder proposals. New guidance on that point is decidedly pro-shareholder and makes a confusing landscape even more so. “This was an early Christmas gift, wrapped up in a bow” for activist investors, ...
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Latest Review of False Claims Act Compliance
Image: The Justice Department has settled a spate of False Claims Act cases with healthcare providers this fall, pointing to several important trends in FCA cases: increased scrutiny on physician payment arrangements, the broadening scope of whistleblowers, and an upsurge in FCA settlement amounts. “Enforcement agencies are aggressively using all ...
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How Mature Is Your Information Governance Function?
Image: Most companies still have much work to do to turn their information governance into “mature” programs, where they can extract insight from their troves of data while minimizing security and privacy risks, according to a new report from the Information Governance Initiative. “To date, very few organizations have taken ...
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Revenue Standard Update: Companies Still Ducking It
Image: Corporate finance departments are playing the silent type right now about how they plan to implement the new revenue recognition standard—which is not quite the amount of disclosure the SEC and others want to see in year-end filings. Those businesses not doing or saying much could be in for ...
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The Key Cyber-Security Question: What Is ‘Reasonable’?
Regulators often say they want “reasonable” precautions when spelling out expectations on cyber-security. But with a plethora of guidance and frameworks to consider, what does that mean—and does “reasonable” depend on industry and company size? A small summit meeting of cyber-security voices debated that question in Boston recently; we have ...
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Parsing the Difference Between GRC & ERM
Image: Lots of executives know the difference between compliance and risk management conceptually. But the difference between “governance, risk, and compliance” and “enterprise risk management”—not so much. This week, we pick apart both acronyms. “Compliance is typically what 90 percent of GRC software does,” says Steven Minsky, CEO of software ...
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Compliance Officers Brace for U.K. Senior Managers Regime
Image: During a panel discussion at Compliance Week’s Europe conference in Brussels last week, compliance executives discussed the broad implications of the new Senior Managers Regime, which makes senior executives personally accountable to regulators for their actions. You’ll also read a candid story of what a run-in with the Financial ...
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Global Investigations in the Modern Era
“Europe” may be a nice short-hand for discussions about global business, but in reality is still 28 individual nations, each with their own laws and customs. Little surprise, then, that in several discussions about internal investigations at the Compliance Week Europe conference, the subject got complicated quickly. We have the ...
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Consequences for Cloud Computing Accounting Start to Roll In
Image: Companies applying new guidance on accounting for cloud computing fees are finding the guidance is not so simple, and doesn’t always provide a sunny outcome on the financial statement, either. Prepare for detailed reviews of your contract, and possibly changes to key metrics and disclosures. “If someone thinks this ...
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As Compliance Risks Keep Rising, Banks Keep Rethinking
A sea change in risk is happening at big banks: Non-financial risks (read: regulatory compliance failures) are now driving the compliance conversation at large firms more than financial risks. “You can have adequate capital, adequate liquidity; but if you have the wrong kind of culture, that is where the problems ...
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When a Board Member Goes Bad
Image: Investigations into rumors of misconduct are part of a compliance officer’s job. Seldom, however, is the task as delicate as when investigating a board member. “You need to think about making decisions knowing that the facts may end up completely different, once it is all done,” Adam Frankel, general ...
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Enforcement Action May Be Omen of SEC’s Cyber-Security Plans
An investment adviser firm in St. Louis has become the (painful) test subject for the SEC’s attitude on cyber-security matters. The case, observers say, is a warning that the agency is moving away from guidance and toward enforcement. So what will the SEC consider to be “reasonable” security efforts? Will ...
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Distilling Compliance Lessons of U.S. Sanctions Laws
Crédit Agricole, fined nearly $790 million last week for violations of U.S. sanctions law, is the latest cautionary tale on this particularly nettlesome patch of corporate compliance. Penalties for sanctions lapses are surging, and the regulations themselves are growing exponentially more complicated. Sanctions compliance was a prime topic at one ...