All Compliance Week articles in Web Issue – Page 681
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Blog
EY Settles Lehman Allegations for $10 Million
Image: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced a $10 million settlement with EY over its role in auditing Lehman Brothers financial statements, which hid tens of billions in leverage before collapsing in 2008. Schneiderman says the $10 million will be distributed as restitution to Lehman Brothers investors. More ...
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Blog
FERF Updates Latest Fraud Defense Tactics
The Financial Executives Research Foundation has put some fresh research and analysis to the fraud conundrum, offering companies some new insights on how to address an old problem. FERF says fraud risk is growing rather than declining for companies, despite plenty of regulatory and legislative efforts to the contrary. More ...
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Blog
Warren on the Warpath: Slams SEC, Pitches Financial Reforms
Image: Slamming the SEC and Justice Department for a “slap on the wrist” approach to enforcement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a recent speech, also championed a slate of financial reforms, including a transaction tax to restrain high-frequency trading, restoring the former Glass-Steagall Act, and reducing the size and risk of ...
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Blog
SEC's Lawsuit Against Freddie Mac Execs Fizzles Out in Unusual Settlement
On Dec. 16, 2011, the SEC charged three former top executives of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) with securities fraud. The SEC alleged that the executives "knew and approved of misleading statements claiming the companies had minimal holdings of higher-risk mortgage loans, including subprime loans." Yesterday, however, ...
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Blog
Walmart Prevails in Bid to Drop Shareholder Proposal on Gun Sales
Walmart will no longer be required to include a controversial shareholder proposal regarding its sale of firearms in its 2015 proxy statement, now that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has overturned an earlier opinion on the matter. Trinity Wall Street, associated with New York City’s Trinity ...
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Blog
Justice Official: Criminal Law Enforcement a Collaborative Effort
Image: Criminal, civil, and regulatory authorities increasingly are collaborating with one another to enforce certain federal criminal laws. “Working closely with regulatory partners at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission … and other domestic and foreign agencies, the unit has tackled some of the largest frauds ...
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Blog
U.K. Regulator Slaps Major Banks With Hefty Fines
The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Bank of New York Mellon £126 million for the lack of compliance monitoring during the financial crisis. In a separate case this week, the regulator also imposed a record fine on Clydesdale Bank for “serious failings in payment protection insurance complaint handling,” the FCA ...
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Blog
Google Faces Antitrust Charges in Europe
Image: The European Commission is expected to file a formal case against Google for abusing its dominance in the digital marketplace. Google now faces the possibility of being hit with $6 billion in fines, according to reports. Earlier this month, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager made a pledge to “remove remaining ...
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Blog
ECB Says Financial Sector Regaining its Momentum
Eurozone banks are expecting to provide more loans to companies in the coming months—a move that puts the banking sector back in the spotlight amid a downturn in recent years. The European Central Bank (ECB) said in its quarterly Bank Lending Survey that “there have been substantial improvements in the ...
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Blog
CommonBond Names Chief Risk Officer
CommonBond, a student loan lending platform, has appointed Vinayak Gurjar as chief risk officer. In this role, Gurjar will be responsible for overseeing CommonBond's risk management strategy and underwriting guidelines. Details inside.
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Article
Data Governance 101: Getting Started
Amassing terabytes of data is easy; for most businesses, managing those valuable—and sometimes very risky—assets is the hard part. A successful data governance initiative, experts say, isn’t a project you can hand off to the IT department or solve with a software purchase. Compliance, audit, and risk executives all need ...
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Blog
Still Reading Tea Leaves on FCPA Enforcement? Try Listening and Reading
Sometimes all the angst and analysis about FCPA enforcement need not happen; sometimes, voices in the enforcement community just tell us what’s coming. That has been the case lately, Compliance Week columnist Tom Fox writes this week, as the SEC’s recent settlement with KBR over confidentiality agreements proves. Inside, he ...
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Article
CFTC Case Against Kraft Puts Cos. on Hedge
Image: A novel interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act is rattling buyers of raw materials. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is moving against Kraft Foods for a big bet in the wheat market, using a section of Dodd-Frank everyone previously assumed was intended to curb high-frequency traders. “The case shows that ...
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Blog
ISS: CEO Pay Jumps 13 Percent Among Early Filers
The average compensation package for CEOs in the United States rose nearly 13 percent in 2014, driven by increasingly valuable pension plans, according to new research from Institutional Shareholder Services that analyzed early filers in the Russell 3000 index. Among firms that use equity compensation, the median grant date value ...
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Article
Shop Talk: Managing Vendor Risk
Pop quiz: Try to name a recent example of corporate misconduct that did not somehow include a company’s vendors or third parties. It’s not easy, and third parties are now a huge part of the compliance officer’s responsibility. In our latest Compliance Week executive forum, we gathered a dozen CCOs ...
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Article
A Bit More Transparency on Risks of Confidentiality Clauses
Image: The SEC is not the only government agency cracking down on “pre-taliation risk” in confidentiality agreements with employees; many others are turning their attention to the issue, too. “This is really a new focus for these agencies,” says Christopher Calsyn of the law firm Crowell Moring. Compliance officers may ...
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Blog
Klass Capital Acquires Resolver
Klass Capital this week announced the acquisition of Resolver, a risk-based corporate performance, compliance, and assurance software provider. The transaction includes Resolver’s GRC product line and their company operations. Details inside.
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Article
Roundtable Biographies - 032415
On March 24, Compliance Week and ProcessUnity presented an editorial roundtable at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The focus of the roundtable was on systematic vendor risk management. Attendees’ full biographies are below.William BrownChief Compliance OfficerKnights of Columbus William Brown joined the Knights of Columbus as chief compliance ...
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Article
Audit Inspections: Improvement? Maybe. Costs? Yes.
Image: Five years of increasingly rigorous PCAOB inspections have driven audit firms to improve their efforts at scrutinizing corporate financial statements and internal control. Companies receiving that pressure say the heightened scrutiny is clear; the question is whether it is making audits better, or just bigger and more expensive. “Companies ...