All articles by Joe Mont – Page 70
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Blog
SEC Proposes New Disclosures for Investment Companies
The SEC has proposed new rules and forms to modernize reporting for mutual funds, ETFs, and other registered investment companies. A new monthly portfolio reporting requirement, Form N-PORT, would require registered funds, other than money market funds, to provide portfolio-wide and position-level holdings data to the SEC. Details inside.
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Dodd-Frank Reform: The Beat Goes On
The Dodd-Frank Act may be turning five years old this summer. Fights about Dodd-Frank, on the other hand, feel like they’ve been going on forever. Washington was back at it again last week, proposing various fixes, reforms, and exemptions to all manner of Dodd-Frank, much of it to help large-ish ...
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Doing God’s Work: Compliance Reform at the Vatican Bank
Image: The Istituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, suffered for decades from poor internal controls and conduct. How has the Holy See tried to recover? Slowly, surely, and with a risk-based approach following international standards. “The expectations are huge in building trust and confidence, ...
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Blog
CW2015: Cutting Through Compliance Complexity
Kicking off Compliance Week 2015 in Washington D.C. on Monday, compliance experts from Boeing, Walmart, and General Electric stressed the importance of having employees take part in culture-building and breaking training into simple, direct objectives. See more from their discussion inside.
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Ding, Dong: EDGAR Fraud Calling
On May 14, PTG Capital Partners, a London-based investment firm, disclosed in a regulatory filing on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system that it offered to buy Avon for $18.75 a share. The firm, however is fictitious, raising questions of how EDGAR was gamed and why the filing was ...
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Survey: Overloaded CCOs Expect Increased Personal Liability
Compliance officers have two fears on their minds these days: increased regulatory fatigue and overload; and the threat of increasing personal liability for corporate misconduct. More than one-third of all firms already spend at least one day every week simply tracking and analyzing regulatory developments, according to Thomson Reuters’ annual ...
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Suddenly, Washington Is Back at Cyber-Security Discussion
Image: For the first time in years, Washington is abuzz with proposed changes to cyber-security disclosure, both in Congress and at the SEC. Above all, experts say, is a need to clarify terminology and expectations. “There should be minimum standards for what that security should be across the board,” says ...
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As SEC Delays on Extractive Payments, World Moves Ahead
The SEC has fought all sides on its proposed rule to disclose payments to governments for mining rights: oil and gas companies on one hand saying the rule is flawed; activists on the other saying the rule is overdue. The trouble, however, is that while the SEC tussles in court, ...
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Study: Social Media Befuddles Compliance
The average Fortune 100 firm has approximately 320 social media accounts and engages with more than 210,000 “followers” annually. The problem, according to a new study, is that the pace, scale, and informal culture of corporate social media creates regulatory risks that go beyond the traditional skill set of compliance ...
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Blog
SEC Approves Tick-Size Pilot Program
The SEC has approved a proposal by the national securities exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for a two-year pilot program that will widen the minimum quoting and trading increments, known as tick sizes, for stocks of some smaller companies. The program—to begin May 6, 2016—will include stocks of ...
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Blog
New Conflict Minerals Reporting Template Available
The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative has published an update to its Conflict Minerals Reporting Template, a tool for tracing the use of conflict minerals in a company’s supply chain and validating smelters. CMRT 4.0, a free reporting template, expedites the identification of new smelters and refiners that may undergo an audit ...
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Blog
FinCEN Targets Money Laundering in Real Estate Deals
Image: Expect a greater focus on the use of real estate holdings as a vehicle for money laundering, Jennifer Shasky Calvery, director of FinCEN, said recently. The goal: “Make it more difficult for criminals to hide their purchases of luxury real estate through the use of shell companies.” Moreover, she ...
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Throwing Books & Records at ’Em
Image: Compliance officers responsible for accurate books and records and effective internal control over financial reporting may be entering a brave new world of regulatory enforcement. The SEC is stepping up its use of administrative proceedings to impose strict liability on even relatively minor infractions of securities law. “The SEC ...
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Latest Pay Disclosure: Bring on the Metrics, Break Out the Peers
Image: Compensation committees and external reporting executives should brace for impact from the SEC’s newest addition to executive compensation disclosure: pay-for-performance rules. The detailed new disclosures (tagged in XBRL, no less) will be extensive, the consequences for executive pay unknown. “How useful is this information really going to be? To ...
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Blog
Despite LIBOR Manipulation, SEC Grants Deutsche Bank Waiver
Image: The SEC has decided not to let an admission of LIBOR manipulation result in the loss of Deutsche Bank’s well-known seasoned issuer status. “It is safe to assume that these waiver requests will continue to roll in, as issuers are now emboldened by an unofficial Commission policy to overlook ...
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Blog
SEC Revisits Cross-Border Swap Rules
The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to better define the requirements for security-based swap transactions that involve a foreign entity’s activity in the United States. A new proposed rule addresses what to do when only certain activities involving a security-based swap transaction occur within the United States. More inside.
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Blog
SEC Proposes Pay-Versus-Performance Disclosure Rule
The SEC has proposed a new pay-for-performance disclosure rule, requiring companies to report the relationship between compensation paid to named executive officers and the Total Shareholder Return of both the company and its peer group. The proposal marks the first time the Commission will require data tagging in the XBRL ...
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Blog
$600,000 to Man in Whistleblower Retaliation Case
The SEC has awarded $600,000 to the first person ever at the center of a whistleblower retaliation case, giving him the maximum award possible for information he provided to the SEC in an investigation against a financial firm in Albany, N.Y. The firm itself was charged in 2014 with retaliating ...
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Blog
Legislation Seeks Transparency on Tax-Deductible Settlements
A bill filed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) would require transparency on tax deductions that minimize the cost of an enforcement action. Any statement by a federal agency about the value of a settlement would need to explain how much of that agreement is tax deductible ...
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Article
The Multimillion Dollar Question: When to Self-Report?
Image: The mantra from regulators when uncovering potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is clear: self-report early and often. Still, companies might want to take a more nuanced approach to that decision, and some legal voices maintain that occasionally shareholders are best served by staying silent. “Right now, ...