Articles | Compliance Week – Page 286
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Year in Review: Regulatory Enforcement in Europe
Image: For compliance officers in Europe, 2015 has been a big year. Aside from focusing on reporting wrongdoing and promoting a speak-up culture, watchdogs have been keeping compliance practitioners busy with a barrage of regulations that show no sign of easing. As compliance officers wonder to what degree the past ...
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Auditing World Braces: More ICFR Attention, Big Rule Changes
Image: Expecting a letup in the scrutiny of internal controls? Forget it: 2016 promises to be another intensive year for ICFR as all sides sharpen their understanding of the subject. “Internal control over financial reporting will remain on everyone’s radar,” says Cindy Fornelli, head of the Center for Audit Quality. ...
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It’s Time to Stop Thinking of Whistleblowers as “Nut Jobs”
A recent comment about whistleblowers largely being crank cases has raised the ugly notion that those who report wrongdoing are more often venting a personal grudge or prosecuting a baseless case, than actually raising a legitimate issue. But in this age of heightened governance concern, can such a cavalier attitude ...
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Managing Cyber-Risk in the Healthcare Industry
Image: Recent high-profile data breaches at several major healthcare providers have jolted the industry, which is trying to piece together better ways to manage the risks. “As opposed to an organization trying to invest more money in firewalls or other types of technical solutions to protect against an intrusion, at ...
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SEC’s Latest Extractive Payments Rule Still Leaves Unanswered Questions, Concerns
The Securities and Exchange Commission has once again proposed a rule requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose payments made to governments for extraction rights. And, once again, legal teams are sharpening their pencils while covered companies sweat the details. An earlier try at the Dodd-Frank Act-required rulemaking lingered ...
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CFPB Critics Focus Fight on Data Collection
Fights over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are often focused on critics’ perceived lack of accountability and transparency. In recent weeks, those battles have doubled down on concerns about how the agency collects, protects, and uses data on consumers and financial institutions. CFPB foes say it is collecting more information ...
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The GRC Audit Quandary
A “quandary” is an interesting word meaning: a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation. A quandary is also what many internal auditors find themselves facing when they audit GRC capabilities. This GRC Illustrated column from Compliance Week and OCEG helps auditors answer the ...
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Regulators Suggest It’s Time to Double Down on Internal Controls
Image: After nearly a year of moderating corporate gripes of excessive auditing driven by regulatory inspections, regulators say the answer is for companies to double down on their controls and use a little more muscle with their auditors. “Preparers are on the back end of the compliance funnel,” said Kevin ...
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SEC Enforcement Trends to Watch in 2016
Image: A legal analysis of SEC enforcement brought in 2015, along with recent speeches given by SEC enforcement staff, provide a pretty clear roadmap of where the enforcement staff will continue to focus its top priorities in 2016. “Making sure you are addressing those issues in your compliance programs is ...
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The ‘Shalt Nots’ of GRC Implementations
There is no shortage of vendors and products in the governance, risk, and compliance software space. Choosing the wrong one can be disastrous. Just as problematic, however, is pairing a poor implementation strategy with even the best of solutions. Missteps can lead to employee revolts, cost overruns, delays, and ineffective ...
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OSHA Enforcement Trends to Watch in 2016
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is raising the stakes for companies that fail to provide safe workplaces. One development affecting CCOs in the coming year would dramatically increase penalties and emphasize who qualifies as an “employer.” “Every employer should be terrified of OSHA right now,” says Valerie Butera of ...
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Is the FAST Act Really Just the JOBS Act 1.5?
Amid speculation of when, or if, Congress would get around to a JOBS Act 2.0—a sequel to a 2012 package of securities law reforms—some of those items surprisingly appeared in a new spending bill for transportation infrastructure. Tucked into the bill are a variety of requirements for the SEC regarding ...
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Lessons From the SFO’s First Deferred-Prosecution Agreement
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office struck its first-ever deferred-prosecution agreement with Standard Bank in November, giving companies some much-needed guidance on how to disclose misconduct. The SFO’s decision to use DPAs is part of a larger undertaking to put a quick end to corporate criminal cases and encourage cooperation between ...
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For Internal Audit, Is Emerging Technology More Trouble Than It’s Worth?
Image: IT audit is challenged not only by persistent talent shortages and rapid changes in technology, but also by concerns about reporting lines that raise questions about independence and the frequency of risk assessments. “Changes in security remain top of mind,” says Robert Stroud, immediate past president of ISACA and ...
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U.S. and U.K. Treasury Revisit AML Risks
Image: For the first time in 10 years in the United States—and for the first time ever in the United Kingdom—financial institutions have some much-needed insight into how these two countries intend to prioritize money laundering and terrorist financing risks, enabling compliance officers to better allocate their limited resources. “These ...
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Transparency Gaps in the Telecom Sector
Many telecom companies perform reasonably well when disclosing their anti-corruption practices, but less so concerning their organizational structures and country-by-country operations. With the potential for corruption fueled by relaxed rules and regulations, large licensing fees, major equipment contracts, the sale of state operators, and increased M&A activity, telecom companies need ...
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AML Regulations in NY Force CCOs to Rethink Everything
Earlier this month New York officials proposed new anti-money laundering regulations for financial institutions that fall under that state’s regulatory regime and supervision—which pretty much includes every major international bank in the world. Along with heightened demands for monitoring programs that detect money laundering red flags, the requirements seek to ...
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SEC’s Concerns Prod a Rethinking of Outsourced Compliance
Image: Faced with budget constraints, firms frequently turn to external professionals to supplement compliance programs—but the SEC has provided a laundry list of problems with that approach. “The SEC has not banned outsourced compliance in any way or said it is presumptively disfavored, but reading between the lines you get ...
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The Popularity, and Peril, of Structured Payable Programs
Image: Structured payable programs have become increasingly popular in recent years as companies and their lenders search for new ways to access working capital. But according to Robert Rostan, CFO and principal at education firm Training The Street, such arrangements could turn short-term accounts payable into longer-term debt that requires ...
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Amid Financial Reporting Changes, SEC Offers Cautions
With changes looming on accounting standards for revenue recognition, leases, financial instruments, and more, skittish corporate accountants often turn to the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance and staff accountants, relying on phone briefings and pre-clearing consultations to get ahead of financial reporting issues before they result in an SEC comment ...