In the post-Enron era, most companies have adopted codes of ethics and codes of conduct. But what are they worth?Not much, according to European corporate compliance survey, reports The Lawyer.com....

Last week, I looked at the issue of CFOs leaving companies in record numbers. Clearly the trend will escalate this year. More of the same, but worse.But what's driving this trend?CFOs are blaming...

Ken Lay is dead but his ghost lingers.Back in August last year, I looked at the curious case of the University of Missouri - Columbia dilemma about the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics, created by...

Climate change is a "tectonic" force as powerful as ageing and globalisation that will reshape markets and economies, according to a report from Lehman Bros.The report The Business of...

Get ready for a spate of age related law suits, warns this report.It's said to be an inevitable result of an ageing Workforce. Even those companies that don't think they discriminate might be...

While the Bush administration has gone for a hands-off approach to hedge funds and private equity, as reported last week in the International Herald Tribune, the Australian regulatory authority has...

Costs of complying with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley financial and accounting disclosure law are leveling off, but overall compliance costs are heading north, reports The Wall Street Journal.THE WSJ,...

Late last year, I talked about a study that looked at the knock-on effects of CEO pay.The study found that largesse of overpaying the boss flowed through the organisation. If the boss was overpaid,...

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's biggest accounting firm, will have to get used to having next to no presence in the world's second biggest economy.PwC has announced it's closing down...

Politicians and Wall Street are howling that the US is losing its financial edge because of Sarbanes-Oxley. The law, we have been told, is causing the world's leading companies to shun Wall...

Just weeks before he goes on trial in Chicago on charges that he and three other executives plundered $80 million out of Hollinger International, Conrad Black has decided to sue his British...

Back in January, I did a blog entry on the growing number of chief financial officers jumping ship.Looks like it could get worse this year, says professional services firm Tatum. Two out of three...

Mergers have a failure rate that, according to some estimates, run as high as 85 per cent.No surprises then that less than nine years after the so-called "merger of equals", the $40 billion...

Before it went belly-up, Enron gained favorable treatments by lobbying Congress, federal and state governments, and various regulatory agencies. Little gifts that included the removal of price...

Earlier this year, I did a blog entry on how gangs spreading malicious Trojan horse software were getting smarter. In the first big attack of 2007, they tried using tabloid headlines to trick users...

Hopes of more changes to Sarbanes-Oxley took a hit last week when Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) member Charles Niemeier came out with the warning that policy makers risk damaging...

Bad news for the 170 companies now being investigated for backdating stock option - the tax man is coming to get you.The IRS is giving companies the opportunity to pay the 20 per cent tax plus...

Last week Denver lawyer Frank Schuchat made the claim that Sarbanes-Oxley is manna for lawyers.He might have a point in that it's created plenty of work for them. But recent developments show...

Further confirmation that Sarbanes-Oxley is here to stay with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke telling the US Senate Banking Committee that Sarbanes-Oxley is "worthwhile to keep",...