Appointment Blogs | Compliance Week – Page 304
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SEC Approves PCAOB Budget, Wants Improvements
Image: The SEC has approved a 2015 budget of $250.9 million for the PCAOB, 3 percent less than its 2014 budget but 8 percent more than the board actually spent in 2014. PCAOB Chairman James Doty said that the decrease “reflects an appropriate reassessment of assumptions relating to personnel and ...
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European Commission Probing Belgian Tax Scheme for Unlawful State Aid
Image: Title: VestagerThe European Commission is investigating whether Belgium’s “excess profit” rule, which allows certain companies to get deep deductions on taxable profits by claiming economies of scale stemming from being part of a multinational group, is breaking EU competition laws. “If our concerns are confirmed, this generalized scheme would ...
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U.K. Court Orders Trials for Alstom Units in Bribery Case
According to published reports, a Crown Court judge has ordered two jury trials for separate units of French conglomerate Alstom SA and is holding out the possibility of a third trial as the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office continues its investigation. The Alstom subsidiaries, and four former employees, are accused of ...
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OCIE Provides Key Observations from 2014 Cybersecurity Examination Initiative
On April 15, 2014, the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations announced that it would be conducting examinations of more than 50 registered broker-dealers and registered investment advisers focused on cybersecurity governance and risk. Until yesterday, there has been little or no information from the SEC concerning the results ...
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SEC Exams Reveal Mixed Bag of Financial Firms' Cyber-Security Efforts
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations examined 106 broker-dealers and investment advisers in an effort to better understand how they address the legal, regulatory, and compliance issues associated with cyber-security. An OCIE risk alert released this week breaks down the findings of the ...
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Pension Protection Fund Names Chief Risk Officer
The Pension Protection Fund, a U.K.-based fund established to pay compensation to members of eligible defined benefit pension schemes, has appointed Hans den Boer as its chief risk officer. He will oversee all of the PPF’s risk functions and becomes a member of the executive committee. Details inside.
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Preparing Your Board for Revenue Recognition
The first rule of care and feeding of directors: no surprises. A major one lurks in the new revenue recognition rules, due to be implemented in 2017. Early surveys show most boards and audit committees have little idea what is looming on the horizon. This week, columnists Stephen Davis and ...
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S&P to Pay $1.375 Billion for Ratings Misconduct
Image: Standard & Poor’s Financial Services and its parent company McGraw Hill Financial reached a $1.375 billion settlement with the Department of Justice for engaging in a scheme to defraud investors in structured financial products. “As part of the resolution, S&P admitted facts demonstrating that it misrepresented itself to investors ...
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No Charges in News Corp. Phone Hacking Scandal
Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corp. announced in separate regulatory filings with the SEC that the Justice Department will not file charges following the completion of its investigation into the phone hacking scandal. Both companies faced potential charges for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act concerning alleged bribes paid ...
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FASB May Offer Deferral, Early Adoption on Revenue Rule
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is considering both a deferral of its sweeping new revenue recognition rule and early adoption for companies ready to proceed, a FASB spokesman said Monday. FASB will decide later this spring on those ideas, after hearing more input from companies preparing for the current 2017 ...
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Federal Contractors Face Human Trafficking Compliance
A new rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires that federal contractors doing more than $500,000 in business outside the United States develop a human trafficking compliance plan and certify that, to the best of their knowledge, neither they nor any of their sub-contractors has engaged in forced labor.
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Recommind Adds Business Intelligence to e-Discovery
Recommind, an information intelligence provider, has released the newest version of its cloud-based e-Discovery platform Axcelerate 5. With the latest upgrades, Axcelerate 5 now brings enterprise-grade business intelligence to e-Discovery, providing total visibility into the time, cost, and quality of document review. Details inside.
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Audit Committees, Operational Risk, and Unease
Image: News flash: Audit committees are still overworked and unsure how to handle new risks confronting Corporate America. So says the 2015 edition of the KPMG Audit Committee Survey, which tells some good news on financial reporting risks, amid a more troubling morass of operational and cyber-security risks nobody seems ...
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JPMorgan Breach Leads to Multi-State Probe
The attorneys general of 19 states have launched a joint investigation into JP Morgan, in the wake of its massive data breach last year that affected 76 million households and millions more small businesses. In a letter to JP Morgan sent last month, the states present a long list of ...
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TimkenSteel Elects New Independent Directors
TimkenSteel elected two new independent directors: Randall Edwards, president and chief operating officer of Premier Pipe, and Ronald Rice, president and chief operating officer of RPM International. Details inside.
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Risk Retention Rule Finalized for Asset-Backed Securities
Bank regulators, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have jointly issued a final rule that imposes credit risk retention requirements on sponsors of asset-backed securities. The rule requires sponsors to hold at least 5 percent of the ...
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Mead Johnson Provides Status on FCPA Probe
Mead Johnson Nutrition disclosed this week in an earnings call that the government’s investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act continues to progress, but with no end in sight. “At this time, we can’t predict how or when the matter will be resolved,” said Chief Executive Officer ...
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Bottomline Acquires Intellinx; Offers Cyber Risk Management Solutions
Bottomline Technologies, a provider of cloud-based payment, invoice, and digital banking solutions, is now offering comprehensive cyber fraud and risk management solutions following its acquisition of Israel-based Intellinx. Details inside.
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New Promotions at Haskell & White
Haskell & White, an accounting, auditing and tax consulting firm, has promoted two individuals in its Audit and Business Advisory Services Department. Details inside.
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Cobalt: SEC Drops Foreign Bribery Probe
Cobalt International Energy announced yesterday that it has received a termination letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that the agency does not intend to recommend any enforcement action after looking into potential violations of federal securities laws related to Cobalt's operations in Angola. “This formally concludes the SEC’s ...