All Compliance Week articles in Web Issue – Page 706
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Blog
Nordis Direct Appoints HIPAA Compliance Officer
Nordis Direct, an independent business solution provider, has appointed Natalie Foster Johnson to the post of HIPAA compliance officer. Johnson's appointment comes at a time when Nordis Direct continues to roll out its communications management and e-bill presentment and payment platforms to medical billing providers, hospitals, and other healthcare businesses. ...
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Blog
A Recap of FCPA Enforcement in 2014
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions brought by the Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission in 2014 held steady in comparison to the previous year's enforcement numbers, while the average price tag in penalty amounts continued to skyrocket. In 2014, the average total value of monetary resolutions in FCPA ...
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Blog
MetLife Makes a Federal Case of its SIFI Designation
MetLife has filed a lawsuit to undo its designation as a non-bank systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Although CEO Steven Kandarian said the company had hoped to avoid litigation, it marks the first time a too-big-to-fail designation has been challenged before a federal judge.
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Article
NLRB Push Forces Rethinking of Social Media Policies
Through numerous rulings last year, the National Labor Relations Board reshaped the boundaries of acceptable social media policies companies can impose on employees. The result: an unsettling world where, yes, employees might be allowed to curse a manager or to use corporate e-mail to raise pro-union sentiments. Compliance officers might ...
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Blog
FASB Jettisons Extraordinary Items From Financial Statements
In its quest to simplify accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has adopted a new provision in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that spares companies the requirement to display extraordinary and unusual items in financial statements. FASB said stakeholders had expressed concerns that companies often faced uncertainty over when to ...
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Blog
SEC Announces 2015 Examination Priorities
The SEC has released its examination priorities for 2015. The list includes cyber-security controls and assessing anti-money laundering efforts, with a focus on firms that have not filed suspicious activity reports or have incomplete or late filings. SEC staff will also examine proxy advisory service firms, assessing how they make ...
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Blog
Omnicom Group Names Controller; Chief Accounting Officer
Omnicom Group, a marketing and communications company, has promoted Peter Swiecicki, currently director of business operations, to controller. The company also appointed Andrew Castellaneta, currently assistant controller, to chief accounting officer. Details inside.
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Article
Latest PCI Standard Pushes Toward Risk Management
Image: Version 3.0 of the PCI Data Security Standard goes into effect this month—and maybe, just possibly, it will strengthen companies’ discipline against credit card data theft. The new standard prods companies to approach security as a continuous risk monitoring duty. “You can’t have smooth implementation until you start to ...
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Article
Lessons to Learn From the Alstom Fiasco
The record $772 million criminal penalty reached between the Justice Department and French power and transportation giant Alstom is yet another real-life example of corporate governance gone haywire. Abounding with cover-ups and an overall lack of due diligence, “The Alstom case is the antithesis of the hallmarks of an effective ...
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Article
XBRL Filing Frustrations Tilting Toward Resolution
Image: Good news for companies weary of the unfulfilled promises around publishing financial data using XBRL: Events are looming that promise either to halt the march toward XBRL compliance or finally shove its usage forward. “XBRL is not working,” says Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition. “Instead of getting ...
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Blog
Painful Lessons Learned From Alstom, Avon Settlements
Two long-standing FCPA investigations—one into Avon, the other into Alstom—wrapped up in December, with results sure to alarm any audit committee. The fines were huge, the investigation costs just as large and, above all, the costs of non-cooperation were demonstrated to be painfully high. Inside, Compliance Week columnist Tom Fox ...
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Blog
A Sad Day for Integrity and Ethics
The refrain that corporate leaders need to focus on leadership and culture may sound like old hat, but it bears repeating—especially since, Compliance Week columnist Rick Steinberg notes, even large businesses with ostensibly mature compliance programs keep making the same mistakes. Inside, he examines one particularly bad day for several ...