All articles by Jaclyn Jaeger – Page 97
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Blog
2015 Corruption Perceptions Index Shows Improved Scores
More countries’ corruption scores improved, according to Transparency International’s 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, rather than declined. That’s the good news. The bad news: Corruption, overall, is still rife globally. Brazil, Libya, Spain, and Turkey are just a few countries that fared worse than last year. More results inside.
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Blog
Treasury and Commerce Further Amend Cuba Sanctions Regulations
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security recently published amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to further implement policy change amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations laid out by the president in December 2014. These ...
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Blog
Financial Conduct Authority Names New Chief Executive
Image: HM Treasury this week announced the appointment of Andrew Bailey as the new permanent chief executive of the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority for a five-year term. He is expected to take up the role in July 2016. Bailey is currently the deputy governor for Prudential Regulation at the Bank ...
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Article
Think the FTC Isn’t Monitoring Big Data? Think Again
Companies that use Big Data analytics will want to carefully review a new report issued this month by the Federal Trade Commission, which warns companies about the sort of ethical, legal, and compliance risks they could encounter when using data analytics practices that fly in the face of consumer protection ...
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Article
Preparing for the EU’s new Data Protection Rule
Sweeping changes to the EU’s data protection laws means new compliance headaches for any U.S. company that collects and handles data on citizens of the European Union. “It’s a game changer, primarily because it sets standards that many companies haven’t had to worry about,” said Hilary Wandall, associate vice president ...
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Blog
FinCEN Takes Aim at Real Estate Industry
Compliance officers, beware: the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s increasingly aggressive push to combat money laundering has entered a new phase, and this time it has its sights on high-end real estate transactions. “We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium ...
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Blog
SBM Offshore Settles Bribery Case With Brazilian Authorities
Dutch engineering company SBM Offshore announced today that it has accepted an out-of-court settlement with Brazilian authorities to resolve allegations relating to the Petrobras bribery scandal, while emphasizing that the settlement does not involve an admission of guilt.
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Blog
Honduras Forms New International Anti-Corruption Body
The Honduran government recently announced the creation of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity (MACCIH), an international body backed by the Organization of American States. Its mandate is to investigate and prosecute criminal activities in the country’s political, judicial and security systems, as well as to ...
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Article
Top Five Ethics and Compliance Failures of 2015
Same story, different year: pressure from senior leaders, a laissez-faire attitude toward bribery and corruption, and middle managers that neither practice nor value a robust culture of ethics and compliance all resulted in some of the biggest corporate faux pas of 2015. Inside is Compliance Week’s list of the top ...
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Article
Liability Protections Included in New Cyber-Security Law
You may have not even noticed it, but discreetly tucked into the massive omnibus spending bill signed into law last month is a provision that effectively makes it safer for companies to share cyber-threat information with one another—but critics argue the bill doesn’t go far enough to ease privacy concerns.
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Blog
Court: Compliance Officers Must Ensure Compliance With AML Laws
A federal district court this month upheld a $1 million fine imposed against the former chief compliance officer for MoneyGram International, finding that individual officers of financial institutions, including chief compliance officers, may be held responsible for ensuring compliance with the anti-money laundering provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act.
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Blog
SEC Charges State Street for Pay-to-Play Scheme
State Street Bank and Trust Company last week reached a $12 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it conducted a pay-to-play scheme through its then-senior vice president and a hired lobbyist to win contracts to service Ohio pension funds.
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Blog
SEC Initiated Record Enforcement Actions in 2015
The number of enforcement actions initiated by the SEC has steadily increased over the past six fiscal years, reaching a record high in 2015, according to a recent report drawing on data from the Securities Enforcement Empirical Database (SEED) that tracks and records information on SEC enforcement actions filed against ...
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Article
Systemic Cases Dominate EEOC Enforcement
Image: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission achieved record enforcement results in 2015 and shows no signs of letting up this year. The good news is that employers now have a leg up in defending EEOC claims where they had little to no leverage before. “The EEOC’s focus on systemic investigations ...
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Blog
EZCORP Names Chief Accounting Officer Amid Financial Restatements
EZCORP has appointed David McGuire as deputy chief financial officer and chief accounting officer, effective as of Jan. 11. The hiring of McGuire comes two months after the payday lender and pawn shop operator announced that it has filed its amended and past due periodic reports with the Securities and ...
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Article
Mitigating Cyber-Threats From the Inside Out
As attacks on corporate networks become more common, companies are getting more adept at protecting their most valuable assets against cyber-threats outside the company, but it’s the insider threats that continue to elude many. Inside, we walk through the difficult part of insider-threat programs: not just creating the program and ...
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Blog
U.K. Printing Company to Pay £2.2 Million in Bribery Case
The Southwark Crown Court in London last week ordered U.K. printing company Smith and Ouzman to pay a total of £2.2 million for making corrupt payments. The sentence and conviction followed a four-year investigation by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office.
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Blog
Petrobras Cancels Drilling Services Contract With Ensco
U.K.-based Ensco said this week in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its customer, Brazil state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras, cancelled its contract for a drilling services contract because of alleged irregularities with respect to contracting prior to the company’s acquisition of Pride International in 2011.
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Blog
Dental Practice Software Provider to Pay FTC $250K for Misleading Customers About Encryption
Henry Schein Practice Solutions, a provider of office management software for dental practices, this week agreed to pay $250,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it falsely advertised the level of encryption it provided to protect patient data.
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Blog
SEC: JPMorgan Misled Customers on Broker Pay
Image: JPMorgan’s brokerage business has agreed to pay $4 million to the SEC to settle charges that it falsely stated on its private banking website and in marketing materials that advisers are compensated based on client performance, rather than commission. According to SEC Enforcement Division Director Andrew Ceresney, “JPMS ...