Articles | Compliance Week – Page 295
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Britain Braces for New Supervisory Regime
Image: British Banks are bracing for “incredible pressure” in 2015 as they implement new rules to make senior executives personally accountable to regulators. Compliance functions will help lead the creation of the new Senior Managers Regime, complete with certification overload. “Regulators will expect compliance in the spirit of the regulations, ...
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Maturing Conflict Minerals Programs in Year 2
Image: Now that everyone has closed their Excel files on the first year of conflict minerals compliance, companies are pushing toward greater automation in Year 2. Reducing lines of data about smelters in your supply chain is one step, improving data integrity another. “Technology can help you understand the supply ...
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Companies Face New Twists in Shareholder Proposals
What the SEC giveth, the courts may taketh away—a point made clear lately by two conflicting messages for companies seeking to keep shareholder proposals off the proxy statement. At the SEC, a victory for Whole Foods suggests the agency might be more business-friendly in granting no-action letters this coming proxy ...
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SEC Nudges Companies on Cash Flows
The SEC is urging companies to tighten accounting procedures around the statement of cash flows, amid a steady rise in restatements associated with it. Speaking at the national AICPA conference earlier this month, SEC staffer Kirk Crews said the majority of errors were “due to relatively less complex applications” of ...
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Insider-Trading Risks Get More Complicated
Image: The appellate court decision to overturn insider-trading convictions of two Wall Streeters brings clarity to some aspects of the crime. It does not, however, reduce insider-trading risks. Yes, the ruling narrows the scope of such offenses, but “a compliance officer would have to be out of his mind to ...
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Shop Talk: Useful Metrics, Effective Training
Effective compliance programs hinge on good training and proper metrics to see how your training influences employee behavior. That was the subject of Compliance Week’s latest executive roundtable, held in Washington and sponsored by LRN. Complete coverage is inside, from what effective metrics look like to how effective training works.
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Roundtable Biographies - 120314
On Dec. 3, Compliance Week and LRN presented an editorial roundtable at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C. The focus of the roundtable was on measuring program effectiveness. Attendees’ full biographies are below.Karen BerthaChief Ethics & Compliance OfficerMCR Karen Bertha serves as the chief ethics and compliance officer of ...
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Regulators Publish Latest Thinking on AML Compliance
Image: Financial regulators have just updated their examination manual for anti-money laundering compliance, giving financial firms plenty of holiday reading on how they should structure their AML programs. “The big changes are in areas where things have moved forward: virtual currency, prepaid cards, changes in the SAR rules, aggregation for ...
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More Hints on Putting New COSO to Work
It’s official: The SEC will not roast companies over an open flame if they continue to use the old COSO framework for internal controls into 2015. That said, SEC staffers also warned at the annual AICPA conference last week that their largesse will not last long, and a bevy of ...
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SEC Gives More Ideas on Less Disclosure
Image: A small army of SEC officials attended the annual AICPA conference last week, offering all manner of advice to financial reporting executives struggling to comply with external reporting rules. One subject: how to achieve better disclosure with fewer words. “We are aware there are some registrants that seem to ...
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Effective governance and the Three Lines of Defense
Compliance officers, internal auditors, fraud investigators, controllers—all of them might work at one company together to assist the business in managing risk. The trick to effective governance is to assign all those professionals (and more) to their proper places in the Three Lines of Defense model.
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Making CD&A Disclosure Meaningful
As compensation committees and securities lawyers gear up for the 2015 proxy season, honing a useful Compensation Discussion & Analysis will be a big part of filing the proxy statement. What are the latest trends in CD&A disclosure? Telling investors how their input has been incorporated into pay decisions, and ...
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It May Be Voluntary, but NIST Framework Is a Crucial Cyber-Security Tool
Each day, it seems another big-name company falls victim to a cyber-attack. The new framework for assessing the security flaws, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, may be intended for critical-infrastructure companies, but other businesses may find that its guidance offers more help than the mélange of ...
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In 2015, ACA Compliance Will Be an Even Greater Challenge
Image: The Affordable Care Act may be a familiar headache for corporate compliance officers, but even the best-prepared companies can expect fresh pain in 2015. “There are going to be many that find themselves in at least technical non-compliance,” says John Haslinger of ADP. “They thought they understood it, but ...
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Due Diligence Practices in Emerging Markets
Compliance officers wondering how their peers manage third-party risks and where they focus due diligence efforts these days will want to take a look at a new report on those practices. Enhanced due diligence firm Arachnys studied where large companies perform due diligence research, and offered a peek at the ...
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Netflix Lawsuit a Lesson in Proper Internal Controls
Netflix is suing a former IT executive, alleging the man created a kickback scheme that netted him more than $500,000 as he executed contracts and approved invoices through sham arrangements with two vendors. Painful for Netflix, yes, but we have key lessons in segregation of duties and internal control worth ...
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Seasonal Employees Can Bring Not-So-Merry Risks
Image: For any company that depends on seasonal workers, don’t overlook the need to give that group compliance training. Even temporary workers need to review the Code of Conduct and have access to the reporting hotline. “There are no exemptions in what constitutes an effective compliance program ... for short-term ...
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Frameworks and Leadership on Cyber-Risks
As cyber-security attacks become everyday news, companies are racing to identify and mitigate their risks. Some of that is “pure” IT security; much of it is about applying a control framework smartly to new technologies—and empowering the right person to oversee these risks. “Companies ... for the most part are ...
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Companies Struggle Over When to Report They’ve Been Hacked
Image: When a company discovers that sensitive data has been compromised, two of the toughest decisions that it faces are whether and when to let regulators, customers, and the public know about the loss. While companies may be hesitant, government officials say they can help. “Getting search warrants, arrest warrants, ...
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ArticleAre Auditors Making Unnecessary Demands on Internal Control Documentation?
As many companies finish work on a new framework for internal controls, a small number of them are starting to question their external auditors’ documentation requirements and are considering pushing back. Lillian Barlett, vice president of risk management and internal audit at SunOpta, for example, says the documentation requests are ...