All articles by Joe Mont – Page 69
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Article
FIFA Fallout Has Banks Fearing Due Diligence Failures
The FIFA corruption scandal has pulled many banks—HSBC, Barclays, Citigroup, Bank of America—into its orbit, although none have tumbled into the black hole just yet. The case does, however, send a vivid message on the importance of enhanced due diligence processes. “It is not enough to know your customer,” says ...
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Blog
Regulators Finalize Dodd-Frank Diversity Policies
Under a Dodd-Frank Act requirement, federal banking regulators, the SEC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have issued a formal policy for assessing the diversity policies and practices of the entities they regulate. The regulators call for a “model assessment” that would include a self-assessment by each covered entity of ...
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Article
How Do You Solve a Problem Like EDGAR?
Image: In a way, the person who submitted false filings to the SEC last month proposing a fictional takeover of Avon Products did the corporate filing community a favor: He reminded everyone how bad the SEC’s EDGAR filing database can be. Ideas to modernize EDGAR are many; ability to achieve ...
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Article
Export Control Reform Still Lags, Leaving Compliance Programs in Lurch
Image: Anyone involved in international trade might hope that one day, in the long run, export control reform will alleviate the compliance burden companies face now. In the short run, however, expect even more pain as reform ideas inch along. “This is one of the most complex and changing environments ...
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Blog
Basel Pitches Bank Rules to Remedy Interest Rate Shocks
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, with a consultative document released on Monday, is seeking public comment on proposals regarding what measures large banks should take, and how much reserve capital they should hold, to weather interest rate risks. More inside.
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Blog
SEC Offers Pay Ratio Rule Analysis for Public Comment
The SEC still has given no sign of a final pay ratio disclosure rule, but there is a new analysis from its Division of Economic and Risk Analysis that the Commission has made available for public comment. The analysis considers the potential effects of excluding different percentages of employees from ...
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Blog
SEC Sues Bulgarian Trader for EDGAR-Assisted Avon Stock Scheme
The SEC says it knows who was behind fake tender offers posted to its EDGAR database and is suing the Bulgarian man it claims is responsible. On June 4, the Commission filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Nedko Nedev and firms he was associated with. He allegedly masterminded ...
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Article
CCOs Need to Be Schooled on Effective Training
Compliance and ethics training needs to move beyond the standard training video and PC-based testing. While online tests are an adequate exercise in rote memorization, experts say the future of effective training means understanding the unique psychologies of the workforce and managers, customizing your messages, and shaping training objectives around ...
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Blog
Survey: Shareholder Pressure Prompts Boards to Rethink Compensation
Nearly 60 percent of companies say their boards expanded compensation explanations in proxy statements as a result of shareholder feedback, and almost one-third of those boards changed executive compensation plans outright in response to pressure from investors. Those findings come from the National Association of Corporate Directors and respondents to ...
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Blog
Warren: SEC Chair’s Tenure ‘Extremely Dissapointing’
Image: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-Mass.), at left, fired with both barrels at SEC Chairman Mary Jo White this week, in a blistering 13-page letter describing White’s tenure as “extremely disappointing” and full of “broken promises.” Among Warren’s concerns: the lack of a final pay-ratio rule and the dearth of guilt ...
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FSOC Report Offers Tea Leaves for Future Regulatory Focus
What are the top threats to the U.S. financial system? In a new report, the Financial Stability Oversight Council cites cyber-security, financial innovations, and high-frequency trading among the problems regulators must address. Critics fret, however, that the agency wants “to get rid of the capital markets and replace everything with ...
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Article
Fighting Complexity With Integrated Compliance Efforts
More than ever before, managing compliance risk now requires a framework that unifies decentralized compliance activities. The goal: to streamline monitoring, testing, and reporting. That may sound difficult in theory—and, well, it’s difficult in practice too. Inside we have tales from Coca-Cola and Kimberly-Clark on how they try to integrate ...
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Blog
Ex-Wells Fargo CEO Slams ‘Absurd’ Compliance Spending
Image: Is the compliance ramp-up at big banks to blame for layoffs, including the 5,000 of them announced last month by JPMorgan? Richard Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo, seems to think so. “It is absurd that [banks] are investing that kind of money on compliance” he said of growing ...
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Blog
Tips on Building a Better, User-Friendly EDGAR
A slew of business groups, from the Center for Audit Quality to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others, have voiced their collective opinion on how the SEC can improve the EDGAR filing process. Their top recommendations were search improvements and the ability to download data in multiple formats. See ...
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Blog
Senator Presses SEC on Fake EDGAR Filings
Image: In a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) demanded more information about fake filings, including a fictitious Avon takeover bid, that somehow make their way onto the agency’s EDGAR system. “This pattern of fraudulent conduct is troubling, especially in light of the relative ease ...
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Article
The Next Plateau for CCOs: Becoming Leaders
Image: More and more evidence suggests compliance officers are now sitting alongside other senior corporate leaders at their organizations—so now they need to exercise that leadership role properly. That was the discussion at Compliance Week 2015, and we have all the insights inside. “More compliance officers are being asked for ...
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Blog
Former Commissioners Slam SEC for Inaction on Political Spending Rule
The latest push to get the SEC to act on a rulemaking petition that companies disclose political contributions and spending on lobbyists: pressure from former commissioners. “The Commission’s inaction is inexplicable,” William Henry Donaldson, Arthur Levitt, and Bevis Longstreth wrote in a letter to current SEC Chair Mary Jo White. ...
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Blog
States Sue to Stop SEC’s Regulation A+
In petitions filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, officials in Massachusetts and Montana, concerned by the diminished role of state securities regulators, are asking the court to vacate the Securities and Exchange Commission’s expansion of the Regulation A exemption ahead of its June 9 ...
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Blog
Podcast: Internal Investigation Lessons From the NFL
Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens attacked his fiancée in an elevator. Super Bowl champion Tom Brady is in a protracted battle over whether he had game balls underinflated. In our latest podcast, we talk to Timothy McConnell, co-chair of the labor & employment practice at law firm Baker Donelson, ...
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Podcast
Podcast: Internal Investigation Lessons from the NFL
Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens attacked his fiancée in an elevator. Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady is in a protracted battle over whether he had game balls underinflated. In our latest podcast, we talk to Timothy McConnell, co-chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group at the law firm ...