All Compliance Week articles in Web Issue – Page 671
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Blog
SEC: First-of-Their-Kind Actions Take the Spotlight in 2015
The Securities and Exchange Commission continued to build a strong record of first-of-their-kind cases that spanned the spectrum of the securities industry, according to the agency’s fiscal year 2015 enforcement report. The SEC filed 807 enforcement actions, obtaining approximately $4.2 billion in disgorgement and penalties—an increase from the 755 enforcement ...
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Blog
Chinese Open New Front in Anti-Corruption Investigations
The Chinese fight against bribery and corruption took an interesting twist earlier this month, when it was announced that the former head of the national oil company, Sinopec, was being investigated for bribery and corruption in the securing of contracts in Angola. If this investigation continues it could open a ...
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Blog
IASB Sets 2019 Effective Date for Lease Accounting Standard
The International Accounting Standards Board says its updated lease accounting standard will take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, for companies following International Financial Reporting Standards. FASB is expected to issue its lease accounting standard by year’s end. The boards concur on how to define a lease and how leased assets ...
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Blog
Britain’s Top Banks Escape Breaking Up; CMA Calls for More Clarity
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has squashed the idea of breaking up some of the country’s largest banks in an effort to improve competition across the industry. After a thorough review, the CMA found that there’s no direct connection between free accounts and competition. Instead, the competition watchdog ...
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Blog
Next Up to Reform Culture: Deutsche Bank
Image: Observers of the financial news might have seen that earlier this week Deutsche Bank reshuffled its senior managers. Observers of the compliance news might want to take note, too. The bank’s new co-CEO has a formidable task in front of him to reform Deutsche Bank’s problem-prone culture, but Compliance ...
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Blog
OCC's Focus on Credit Risk Includes Auto Loan Concerns
A side effect of the economic recovery is that credit risk is now "moving to the forefront," says Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry. As banks reach for loan growth with less creditworthy borrowers, the resulting risk is prompting increased regulatory scrutiny of auto, home equity, and commercial real ...
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Blog
FIFA Misconduct Strikes Again, at German Prestige
Image: The German magazine Der Spiegel is reporting that the committee set up by the German Soccer Federation to bid for the 2006 World Cup hosting rights ran a slush fund of more than 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) to help secure those hosting rights. Given all that has ...
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Blog
PCAOB Issues Crowe Horwath Inspection Report
Image: The PCAOB found fault with five of 14 audits inspected at Crowe Horwath in 2014, a slight improvement for the firm over its 2013 results. The board’s 2014 inspection report revealed an audit deficiency rate of 36 percent, compared with 38 percent in 2013 and 50 percent in 2012. ...
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Blog
Irish Data Regulator Probes Facebook’s European Privacy Practices
Image: The investigation by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon into Austrian law student Max Schrems’ privacy complaint will continue in light of the recent decision by the European Court of Justice to invalidate the Safe Harbor program for international data transfers between the United States and the European Union. ...
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Blog
Crédit Agricole to Pay $787 Million for Sanctions Violations
Crédit Agricole will pay a total of $787.3 million in criminal and civil financial penalties for economic sanctions violations. Federal and local agencies allege that Crédit Agricole engaged in a series of schemes to process more than $32 billion in U.S. dollar payments through its New York branch from its ...
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Blog
Pres. Obama Nominates Fairfax, Peirce as SEC Commissioners
This week, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Lisa Fairfax, currently a law professor at the George Washington University Law School, and Hester Peirce, a senior research fellow at the Financial Markets Working Group at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, as SEC commissioners. If confirmed, Fairfax and Peirce will ...
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Article
Dueling Views on SEC Enforcement
Image: A chronic dilemma for the SEC Enforcement Division is how best to focus its efforts given resource constraints. Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney had to answer for how those decisions are made during a meeting of the Investment Advisory Committee last week. Despite calls to abolish the “broken windows” approach, ...
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Article
Insurance Companies Face New Scrutiny and Bank-Like Regulation
Image: Insurance firms are in an identity crisis these days: Regulators are treating them like banks. While insurers are trying to resist that, regulators themselves still struggle with how to make sense of the global jumble of rules, requirements, and risk generated by large firms. “There are a lot of ...
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Blog
'You Know What's Cool? A Billion Dollars,' Part III
Yes, the Madoff trustee's legal and professional fees have passed the $1 billion mark, but with the release today of more good news for Madoff victims, the trustee says that this $1 billion (and counting!) is a “very good return on an investment.”
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Article
Hosting a Related-Party Transaction About to Get Much Harder
Image: Companies preparing year-end financial disclosures, beware: Auditors will be poring over related-party transactions to make sure those parties don’t get too wild. The new Audit Standard 18 pushed auditors to be more skeptical about transactions, so expect them to push you (and your audit committee) to be more diligent ...
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Article
Hosting a Related-Party Transaction About to Get Much Harder
Image: Companies preparing year-end financial disclosures, beware: Auditors will be poring over related-party transactions to make sure those parties don’t get too wild. The new Audit Standard 18 pushed auditors to be more skeptical about transactions, so expect them to push you (and your audit committee) to be more diligent ...
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Blog
Microsoft Proposes Two Board Nominations
Microsoft this week announced two nominations to its board of directors: Sandra Peterson, group worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson, and member of the executive committee, and Padmasree Warrior, former chief strategy officer and chief technology officer at Cisco. Both will be presented for election at the company's annual shareholders ...