All Compliance Week articles in Web Issue – Page 674
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Blog
Caldwell Offers More Details on Charging Decisions
During remarks this week at the American Conference Institute’s International Conference on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, provided some additional insight regarding charging decisions in corporate prosecutions. “Greater transparency benefits everyone,” said Caldwell. More of her comments are inside.
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Blog
Yates and Caldwell Lay Out Their FCPA Expectations
Image: Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates (left) and Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell talked last week about what they, and more importantly the Justice Department overall, expect from companies that want to receive as much credit as possible when embroiled in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation. What companies should ...
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Blog
SEC Proposes Rules for Alternative Trading Systems
The SEC has proposed rules intended to enhance regulatory oversight of alternative trading systems that, because of their off-exchange equity deals, are often described as “dark pools.” They would be required to disclose on a new Form ATS-N details about the activities of broker-dealer operators. The proposal also requires all ...
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Blog
Inspection Results Vary Even Within Global Networks, PCAOB Member Says
Image: Global affiliates of the six largest accounting firms turn in strikingly different inspection results compared with their U.S. affiliates. PCAOB research shows. Deloitte U.S., for example, has been reducing the rate of deficiencies in its inspections from 2011 through 2013, but Deloitte’s global affiliates have turned in much higher ...
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Blog
Is Social Media Considered ‘Real Monitoring’?
A recent survey by Compliance Solutions at Charles Schwab found that compliance officers spend 11 hours per week monitoring their employees’ personal brokerage accounts, while half are closely monitoring social media platforms. One of the main challenges that compliance officers face is chasing data, which are “owned” by other departments. ...
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Blog
SEC's Piwowar Takes Another Shot at 'Flawed' Enforcement Statistics
In a speech this week, SEC Commissioner Michael S. Piwowar took another swipe at the SEC's enforcement statistics, jokingly comparing them to financial statements in a "world where GAAP or other reporting standards did not exist."
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Blog
Piwowar: SEC Must Focus on Materiality, Not Social Issues
Image: Don’t believe the hype about divisiveness at the SEC. The increasingly common occurrence of split votes along party lines is a byproduct of Congressional mandates, notably through the Dodd-Frank Act, that wedge social issues into the disclosure regime at the expense of materiality. That’s the word from Commissioner Michael ...
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Resource
Free Guide: Building Better Vendor Risk Assessments
Improve the Quality & Efficiency of Your Vendor Risk ProgramDownload our informative white paper, Building Better Assessments, and you will learn how organizations like yours can improve third-party risk assessments while balancing regulatory pressures, business requirements, and budget constraints.Key topics include:Quality - How did you perform against your objectives during ...
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Blog
Study: Energy Sector Behind Spike in Goodwill Impairments
A TEXT released this week by Duff & Phelps finds that U.S. companies recorded $26 billion of goodwill impairment, an 18 percent increase from $22 billion in 2013. The increase was largely driven by oil and gas companies. The survey also uncovered a pronounced uptick in public companies’ use of ...
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Blog
Jumping on the VW Amnesty Microbus
Image: Last week Volkswagen offered amnesty to employees who admit any role they played in the emissions-testing scandal currently wracking the company—no doubt drawing upon the success Siemens had when it made a similar offer to employees during a 2006 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation. Opinions differ on the move, ...
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Blog
Barclays’ Cost of Conduct Woes Continue
Barclays is set to pay £65.7 million to settle allegations that it manipulated foreign exchange markets—adding to the $120 million the British bank already paid to the New York Department of Financial Services for its involvement in the Libor scandal. According to a report from the CPP Research Foundation, Barclays’ ...
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Blog
Justice Department Revises U.S. Attorneys’ Manual
Image: During remarks at the American Banking Association and American Bar Association Money Laundering Enforcement Conference, Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates announced that the Department of Justice has made some significant revisions to its U.S. Attorneys’ Manual, providing new insight on how prosecutors are implementing the Yates Memo. “We ...
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Blog
Early 2015 Inspection Results Hint to Some Improvements
Image: PCAOB Chairman Jim Doty met recently with FASB’s Standing Advisory Group to provide an early look at 2015 inspection results. “Overall early results indicate that the number of deficiencies identified in the engagements inspected appears to be declining from the 2014 inspections results,” he said. “These results vary for ...
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Article
Disclosure Update: How Companies Are Tackling Comp Rules
The Dodd-Frank Act brims with new disclosure demands regarding executive compensation. Slowly but surely—emphasis on slowly—the SEC has been issuing rules on clawbacks, pay for performance, and the dreaded pay ratio rule. This week, we look at those three measures and what companies have done so far to comply with ...
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Article
Defense Dept. Steps Up Standards on IT Supply Chain Risk
Image: The Defense Department is taking a harder look at supply chain risks posed by government contractors who provide IT products and services, so compliance officers at those businesses should prepare to review how supply chain risks might affect eligibility to bid on future contracts. “This fits into the government’s ...
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Article
FASB Ideas on Materiality Reform Draw Heat, Questions
Image: An effort to align the accounting world’s definition of materiality with how the idea is widely understood in legal circles is sparking a fierce debate in corporate accounting circles, with potentially big consequences for financial reporting. “More information or more disclosure is better than less, in general,” said Damon ...
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Article
Connected Medical Systems, HIPAA Audits Coming in 2016
Image: Inspectors at the Department of Health & Human Services are going to spend 2016 studying the security protocols for medical devices and electronic health records, which means compliance officers in the healthcare field should make sure your policies and controls can pass muster. Also on deck are more HIPAA ...
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Blog
What Went So Wrong at VW
The full consequences of Volkswagen’s “emissions evasion” scandal are just starting to be understood. The governance failures that led to the misconduct, however, are not new. Pressure from the chief executive, ineffective directors, a workforce that does not take compliance seriously; we have heard all that before. This week, columnist ...
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Blog
Aguilar to Depart SEC by End of December 2015
Image: SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar intends to step down at the end of December. In a letter to the president, Aguilar expressed pride in sponsoring the first Investor Advisory Committee, which was later mandated by Section 911 of Dodd-Frank. Aguilar will leave the SEC as the eighth longest-serving commissioner ...