All Compliance Week articles in Web Issue – Page 645
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Blog
SEC Charges Magnum Hunter with faulty evaluations of internal controls
Oil and gas producer Magnum Hunter Resources and several individuals settled charges this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission for deficient evaluation of the company’s internal controls over financial reporting, and failures to maintain internal control over financial reporting.
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Blog
ASIC announces record sentence in Xiao insider trading case
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced that Hui Xiao, a former managing director of Hanlong Mining, was sentenced today to a total of 8 years and 3 months for insider trading -- the longest sentence ever imposed in Australia for that crime. The Xiao case is a nice success ...
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Blog
FASB wraps up revenue recognition technical decisions
FASB has determined how it wants to address questions around certain aspects of the disclosure requirements for unmet performance obligations in the new revenue recognition standard. The board plans to add a practical expedient to the disclosure requirements around certain types of variable consideration; it also will make some improvements ...
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Blog
Are anti-bribery experts focusing on the wrong numbers?
To be sure, enforcement data is an important tool for companies to understand their anti-bribery regulatory risks. But relying solely on U.S. enforcement statistics reveals only part of the increasingly complex and multi-layered regulatory landscape that multinationals are facing today. Inside, a look at what can be accomplished when the ...
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Blog
BDO USA weighs in with proxy season advice
Volatility and risk around the globe is fostering uncertainty in corporate boardrooms around the country, and the “unsettled climate should make for an interesting annual meeting season,” says a new report by BDO USA, an accounting and consulting firm. The firm has compiled a list of topics that corporate management ...
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Blog
Senate committee sets March 15 hearing on SEC nominations
The months-long wait for filling vacancies on the Securities and Exchange Commission may soon be coming to an end. On March 15 at 10 a.m., the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on President Obama’s October nominations of Lisa Fairfax (a Democrat) and Hester Peirce (a Republican) to replace ...
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Blog
Survey finds mid-sized businesses still challenged by ACA
The recently released ADP Midsized Business Owners Study for 2015 looks at how that market segment is responding to regulatory and compliance challenges, notably obligations under the Affordable Care Act. Regulatory concerns appear to be increasing. In 2014, only 30 percent ranked managing the layers of government regulations as the ...
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Blog
Internal audit intelligence calls for elevated service levels
Image: At a recent Institute of Internal Auditors conference, audit executives heard the early returns from the annual IIA Common Body of Knowledge study that suggest North American audit stakeholders would welcome more help in identifying strategic risks. Brian Christensen, executive vice president at consulting firm Protiviti, which assisted with ...
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Blog
SEC awards nearly $2 million in latest blockbuster whistleblower payout
The SEC announced another blockbuster whistleblower award yesterday. The agency stated that it will pay nearly $2 million to three whistleblowers in a case -- including a payment of approximately $1.8 million to one of the three whistleblowers.
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Blog
EU non-financial reporting: directives and consultations
The Non-Financial Reporting Directive requiring all member states to adopt legislation for public company non-financial reporting comes into force on 6 December 2014, giving EU member states two years to transpose it into national law. According to a European Commission impact assessment, those companies have a lot of work to ...
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BlogHow Qualcomm’s FCPA blunder involved rank incompetency
Hiring the son or daughter of a government official to secure a lucrative business contract is clearly out of bounds. But hiring somebody who was specifically rejected from an interview process as being unfit for the job in question, a scenario recently played out at Qualcomm and its China-based operations ...
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Blog
Report: Europe makes up majority of U.S. bribery investigations
The majority of U.S. investigations and enforcement actions concerning alleged bribery of foreign officials conducted against non-U.S. companies and individuals involved companies or individuals from Europe, according to a new report issued by anti-bribery group TRACE International. Companies or individuals from Europe made up approximately 71 percent of U.S. bribery ...
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Blog
Run, don't walk, from CEO conflicts of interest
On March 2, Aubrey McClendon—founder and CEO of American Energy Partners, and co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Chesapeake Energy—died in a fiery one-person car crash, where it appears he deliberately drove his vehicle into a concrete barrier around a highway overpass. This car accident occurred the day after he was ...
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Article
Q&A with Randy Stephens of NAVEX Global: Why third-party due diligence still flummoxes so many companies
Image: Third-party risk continues to be a major concern for executives, and there is no shortage of high-profile compliance failures in recent years. And yet, a recent survey by NAVEX Global of more than 300 ethics and compliance professionals found that 32 percent of their companies don’t evaluate third parties ...
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Article
Proxy season debates may include board scrutiny and short-termism
With proxy season just around the corner, the annual tradition of assessing the mood of investors has begun. On tap, experts say, are demands for improved transparency and communication, better disclosures, and a continuing scrutiny of directors, including how (and how much) they and their C-suite cohorts are compensated. “We ...
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Blog
Audit regulators globally call on big firms for faster improvement
Audit regulators globally say they aren’t satisfied with inspection results the past few years and are working with the six largest global audit networks—Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, BDO, and Grant Thornton—to step up the pace of improvement. The International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators, a global association of audit regulators ...
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Article
Footnotes of the future: reflections from the Disclosure Initiative
The IASB hears from investors all the time: Financial statement disclosures are too complicated, with too much insignificant detail; unorganized footnotes; and language that reads like a checklist. Seems the board has been listening. Inside, IASB member Gary Kabureck discusses some of the actions the board is taking to improve ...