Filed in archive executive pay
by leon on May 19, 2008
Soaring executive pay is shaping up as a major political issue. US share prices might have fallen but executive compensation has continued to rise with the average chief executive now making more...
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Filed in archive Accounting
by leon on May 18, 2008
Some alarming stats coming out of a recent Grant Thornton survey.According to the survey, nearly 75 per cent of accountants have no experience dealing with International Financial Reporting Standards...
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The gloves are off! The fight's on between corporate raider Carl Icahn and the Yahoo! board with Icahn selecting an alternative board in a bid to take control of the company. The list of heavy...
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Interesting developments in relation to the activity surrounding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).Now we have reports that the US Justice Department has started targeting inidviduals, not...
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Filed in archive litigation
by leon on May 16, 2008
Two years ago, there was plenty of talk about how the backdating scandals would turn into a lawyers' picnic. Lawyers, who are always quick to find new ways of making a buck, were filing lawsuits...
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Filed in archive Accounting
by leon on May 15, 2008
In an extraordinary development, lumbering mortgage finance behemoth Freddie Mac's share price climbed after the company used accounting shenanigans to a report $151 million net loss for the...
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Filed in archive strategy
by leon on May 15, 2008
With the credit squeeze and soaring energy prices, it's worth asking whether investors can see that far ahead. How do investors read trends and make the right calls?Emory University academics ask...
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Filed in archive Ethics
by leon on May 14, 2008
With the the growth of the prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), something I have talekd about here and here, you would think people would have learned.Not according to a new...
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In the past I have talked about the growing threat of mortgage fraud here and here.Now we have the FBI warning that mortgage fraud is rising, up 31 per cent to 46,717 reports. An extraordinary number...
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Filed in archive markets
by leon on May 13, 2008
Green investment is all the rage. But does it deliver? Does it pay off and produce strong profits for the investor.This piece in the latest edition of The Economist, Backing greens with greenbacks,...
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Filed in archive strategy
by leon on May 13, 2008
Can the biggest get bigger? Can companies get too big to grow? That's the interesting question raised in this Harvard Business Review piece that looks at research showing how companies get to a...
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Filed in archive markets
by leon on May 12, 2008
The problem with the crisis now is that we have this illusion of market fundamentalism, that the markets are ultimately perfect and self-correcting. But that's a religion built on false premises,...
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Filed in archive markets
by leon on May 12, 2008
What to make of the good economic news? Is the lower unemployment rate cause for celebration? And what of the improving productivity figures and shrinking trade deficit? Don't pop the champagne...
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Filed in archive Ethics
by leon on May 10, 2008
After its involvement in the shooting of 17 Iraqi citizens last year, a criminal investigation by the FBI, internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile...
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Filed in archive markets
by leon on May 10, 2008
AIG, in combination with the soaring oil price, managed to drag down the US market after it posted a first quarter loss of $7.8 billion on the back of the mortgage-related downturn. And the reality...
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Filed in archive risk
by leon on May 09, 2008
With the world's banks bleeding from their over-exposure to bone-headed investments and bad loans, the latest hot job is the Chief Risk Officer.Bank of America, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, J.P....
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Filed in archive executive pay
by leon on May 09, 2008
Why does the boss rake in obscene amounts of money while the rest of us toil for what feels like little reward? Apparently it's for your own good.That's the line of economists when they...
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Filed in archive Ethics
by leon on May 08, 2008
After the hammering it's received in the Saudi bribe scandal, BAE Systems is now putting out the line that it will be ethical from now on. Don't hold your breath.A new report into the defense...
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Filed in archive Ethics
by leon on May 07, 2008
With more pressure on companies over environmental issues, it's no surprise that complaints about greenwashing are up. A report released by Britain's Advertising Standards Authority found...
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Filed in archive markets
by leon on May 07, 2008
It's been a bad bad week for Swiss bank UBS.First it announces it's on the way to cutting 5500 jobs after losing $11 billion in the first quarter as a result of the US subprime crisis. Most...
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Filed in archive Ethics
by leon on May 06, 2008
Whether it's because of cigarettes, or binge drinking or pollution, it's often blamed on the big corporations.Now a group of academics at City University of New York and University of...
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Filed in archive Accounting
by leon on May 06, 2008
I have always talked about Sarbanes-Oxley being a gold-mine for accountants. So big a gold-mine that accountants seem to be recession-proof.That might explain the latest data showing that accounting...
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