Articles | Compliance Week – Page 287
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How to Simplify Cyber-Security Controls Amid Abundant Laws
By now every compliance officer has already heard the warning that it’s a matter of when you suffer a cyber-security breach, not if. Then comes compliance with breach disclosure rules—and those demands are becoming as perplexing as the cyber-threat itself. Overwhelmed, compliance officers are seeking ways to navigate these demands ...
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Avoiding the Pitfalls of Data Mining
In recent months, numerous companies have found themselves the target of legal and enforcement actions for obtaining or using personal data without consent. The kicker: Most of these actions could have been easily avoided, since most of the infractions were clear violations of contract law. “If companies simply complied with ...
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U.S. Failures to Track Beneficial Owners Create AML Headaches Internationally
Image: Despite the forward march in Europe and elsewhere to fight money laundering, a problem remains: Here at the largest economy in the world, state incorporation laws in the United States create a massive loophole that bad actors can exploit. “It’s a huge problem not just for the United States ...
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Rule Change to Ease Export Controls in the Cloud
Image: Good news: U.S. export control regulations may finally be catching up to modern cloud computing technology, with new rules to focus on keeping sensitive data secure rather than on where the data is stored. Defense and tech companies are likely to be beneficiaries, as they could now use cloud ...
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EU AML Directive Fires Starting Pistol on Beneficial Owners Reform
European financial firms are preparing to implement new anti-money laundering rules that will require reporting about the real owners of the businesses they work with. The rules, intended to help EU governments pursue tax crimes and terrorist financing, “will increase the level of transparency across all transactions,” says Ambrose Loughlin ...
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PCAOB, SEC Redouble Efforts on Audit Quality
Image: The SEC and PCAOB are pushing this summer to clarify and improve “audit quality.” That might be a proposal to name the engagement partner working on corporate audits (PCAOB idea), or an exploration of new disclosure requirements for audit committees (SEC idea), or both. “I would urge commenters to ...
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All the Questions Confronting Clawback Policy
The SEC has proposed a new rule that publicly traded companies adopt a clawback policy to recoup incentive-based compensation from executives that later turns out to be based on faulty financial statements. How hard can that be? Well, pretty hard, many compensation experts say. Inside, we have the run-down on ...
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A Debt Is Owed, No Matter How You Want to Account for It
Image: Even the simplest accounting issues, it seems, can be anything but simple. Rulemakers were reminded of that recently when they tried to simplify how companies account for the cost of securing debt. “Most people get confused by it,” says Diana Gilbert of RoseRyan. “People get wrapped around the axle ...
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Confounding Hints on CCO Success
Image: Everyone knows that independent chief compliance officers make for a better compliance program, right? Um, perhaps we need to think again: New data suggests that companies with compliance reporting into the general counsel tend to be more effective. The lesson may not be one of inherent superiority, says LRN’s ...
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Advisers Still Feel Unease Over CCO Liability Risk
Image: The conversation about personal liability for compliance officers is buzzing again, thanks to a hornet’s nest SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher stirred up with a complaint about recent sanctions against two CCOs. “We’re hearing similar concerns among CCOs at investment adviser firms—and not just from CCOs, but also from senior ...
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Compliance? There Should Be an App for That!
Compliance officers talk a lot about the need to embrace new technology. This week in a guest column from Raphael Richmond, global director of compliance at Ford, we hear how her team developed a compliance app for employees, business partners, the public, and even a certain Big Auto compliance chief ...
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Drug, Device Companies Face New FDA Electronic Submissions
The Food and Drug Administration is overhauling how it accepts submissions for a host of filing requirements imposed on drug and medical device makers. For many, this will be the first time the submissions have ever been filed electronically. While the move away from paper documents may ultimately be advantageous ...
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Compliance Officers as Strategic Partners
Lots of people talk about the compliance function as crucial to business strategy today, but gaps remain: According to one PwC survey of chief executives, 78 percent of CEOs say overregulation is the top threat to growing their business; at the same time, only 35 percent of CCOs in PwC’s ...
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Smaller Companies Struggle Forward on SOX Compliance, System Investments
More grist for smaller reporting companies unhappy with your compliance burdens: A new report finds that although all businesses continue to invest in SOX compliance, smaller companies still report less benefit from the effort. Inside, we look at which parts of compliance are most troublesome for small filers (“If they ...
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In London, Compliance Officers in the Crosshairs
Recent cases in the United Kingdom suggest that prosecutors and regulators are increasingly willing to hold compliance officers personally liable as they wage war against corporate fraud. Inside, we look at the corruption charges brought by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office against Alstom SA and the Financial Conduct Authority’s case against ...
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Revisiting Financial IT for Better Monitoring, Testing, Compliance
A funny thing happened on the way to the Shangri-La of automated monitoring and testing: It didn’t happen—at least, not yet. Advanced IT to improve monitoring and testing exists, but integrating those solutions into corporate data warehouses and business operations is harder than first thought. Inside, a look at how ...
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Q&A: The Battle for Better Disclosure Data
Image: As part of our ongoing series of conversations with compliance and risk experts, we spoke with Hudson Hollister, founder and executive director, Data Transparency Coalition, a trade association pursuing the publication of government information as standardized, machine-readable data. Hollister talks about the SEC’s efforts to modernize its disclosure regime ...
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Anti-Corruption Reforms Push Forward in Mexico
Mexico has moved forward again on its quest to strengthen anti-corruption laws there, adopting reforms to clear the path for government authorities to uncover and prosecute acts of corruption committed by companies, individuals, and government officials. More legislative work is ahead, but so far Mexico’s laws might even surpass the ...
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More Banks Tying Pay to Corporate Values
More financial institutions, facing pressure from regulators and investors, are starting to tie compensation practices to ethical behavior and appropriate risk-taking—although progress has been slow. “A consistent leadership culture is necessary in which corporate values, business strategy, and formal incentives support each other,” said Jürgen Fitschen, co-chair of the group ...
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SEC Rule on Pay-for-Performance Triggers Criticism on TSR Metric
Image: The SEC’s proposed pay-for-performance rule would require companies to disclose the relationship between executive compensation and Total Shareholder Return. A simple and effective metric? Not everyone thinks so. “At first blush it’s intuitive: executives should win as shareholders win,” says Barry Sullivan of compensation consulting firm Semler Brossy. The ...