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executive pay
by leon on April 30, 2007
Plenty of response to the House passing legislation that gives shareholders a non-binding say on executive compensation.In his Ideoblog, Professor Larry Ribstein describes it as an attempt to increase...
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Accounting
by leon on April 30, 2007
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has announced that the US and Europe will be working to a single accounting standard by 2009.But will there be glitches in the transition?La...
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Ethics
by leon on April 28, 2007
MBAs have reputations for chasing the dollar and status. And questions are being raised about business schools churning out graduates lacking in important skills like teamwork, or listening to people....
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corporate governance
by leon on April 27, 2007
The dog's breakfast that is German corporate governance continues.Just days after Siemens chairman Heinrich Von Pierer announced he was stepping down in the wake of investigations into bribery and...
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Ethics
by leon on April 26, 2007
Interesting study from McKinsey showing a huge and troubling gap between how corporations and consumers see corporate social responsibility.The study The trust gap between consumers and corporations f...
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SOX
by leon on April 26, 2007
By a vote of 62-35, the US Senate has rejected an attempt to water down Sarbanes-Oxley.The move to neutralise Sarbox was done through the back door, in the form of an amendment put up Republican Jim D...
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Compliance
by leon on April 25, 2007
In a world where more than 50 of the world's top economies are corporations, where Wal-Mart's GDP is bigger than Denmark's and where foot-loose capital and the rising power of corporations...
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Ethics
by leon on April 25, 2007
It was a corporate spying scandal that led to congressional hearings and an enhanced state privacy law.But with the criminal case against former Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn and three othe...
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litigation
by leon on April 25, 2007
At the end of last year I looked at how the Fannie Mae scandal had turned into litigation city with the mortgage giant suing its auditor KPMG and regulators going for the group's former leaders.No...
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Ethics
by leon on April 25, 2007
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is digging in for the fight. Wolfowitz is under pressure to quit with the investigation into the way his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, got a pay rise and promotion.A day ...
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risk
by leon on April 24, 2007
Last year, the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia out out a paper Heating up the planet which has scenarios of weather extremes and wilder fluctuations in rainfall and temperatures transforming the r...
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Ethics
by leon on April 24, 2007
Earlier this month I did a blog entry on the continuing BAE shenanigans following the Blair Government decision to drop its probe into BAE's dubious dealings with saudi arabia.The decision shows a...
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executive pay
by leon on April 24, 2007
For the Apple-bashers hoping regulators would throw the book at Apple chief Steve Jobs over options backdating, better take a cold shower!!!Months into the federal probe of options backdating at Apple...
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SOX
by leon on April 24, 2007
Scam-meisters are now resorting to Sarbanes-Oxley.The financial accounting Standards Board (FASB) has put up a warning about companies getting calls from bogus salesman claiming they work for the FASB...
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Ethics
by leon on April 21, 2007
Last week I did a blog entry looking at the debate surrounding Tim O'Reilly's proposal for a bloggers' code of conduct.After the uproar, O'Reilly has now come out and said he has scrap...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 20, 2007
Last week, we had the reports that the pressure was on Siemens chairman Heinrich von Pierer to step down, an issue I examined here.
Von Pierer has finally bowed to the inevitable and announced he is s...
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Accounting
by leon on April 20, 2007
In the lead up to the Blackstone initial public offering, The Wall Street Journal has a piece saying that it's shaping up as a test case of new fair-value accounting rules where profits can be boo...
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SOX
by leon on April 19, 2007
So the regulators are rolling back Sarbanes-Oxley. What does that mean for investors long-term? And how much of of it should go?These are some of the issues examined in this piece Will the SEC Embrace...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 19, 2007
Here's a Warning for anyone who thinks the typical fraud perpetrator is lower down in the food chain.Research from KPMG Forensic, reported here, shows that most fraudsters are male, typically aged...
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Ethics
by leon on April 19, 2007
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is digging in over the contentious promotion and pay rise for his girlfriend but the problem is not going away.This week World Bank staff launched a new website ...
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corporate governance
by leon on April 18, 2007
Protecting and encouraging whistleblowers is now the big governance issue. You can bring in laws like Sarbanes-Oxley but they have a limited impact. In fact, they might even make it worse, something I...
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Ethics
by leon on April 18, 2007
How can a sprawling business like GE maintain its integrity, ethical standards and corporate reputation? With a workforce of 316,000 spread across the world and operating businesses in such areas as i...
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executive pay
by leon on April 17, 2007
What happens to a company's stock price when the CEO buys a mansion? It heads south, according to a study.Academics from Stern School of Business and the W.P.Carey School of Business based their f...
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Accounting
by leon on April 16, 2007
Since Andersen went out of business for obstructing justice, auditors have been pushing hard for liability caps. It's something I have examined here, here, here, here and here.Now a new study migh...
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Compliance
by leon on April 13, 2007
Poring through charts and documents for compliance purposes can be absolutely mind-numbing. It's a language of its own. So the consultants JuiceAnalytics have come up with new buzzwords for data a...
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Ethics
by leon on April 13, 2007
Wal-Mart can't take a trick. The world's biggest retailer seems to lurch from one screw-up to another. Indeed, type "Wal-Mart" and "blunder" into Google and you get 175,000...
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corporate governance
by leon on April 12, 2007
More fallout from the Siemens bribery scandal. The heat is on former Siemens chief executive Heinrich von Pierer to step down as chairman, according to the latest news reports.The pressure is coming f...
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risk
by leon on April 12, 2007
In the past, I have done a post on regulators like Britain's Financial Services Authority keeping a nervous eye on the buyout boom and I have looked at questions whether private equity will be bro...
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Ethics
by leon on April 12, 2007
Fascinating to read the arguments zipping back and forth about the proposal from two Internet luminaries, Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales, to establish a code of conduct for bloggers.Now the blogosph...
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Compliance
by leon on April 11, 2007
Are annual reports on the way out?The Financial Times reports that HSBC'S annual report has grown to such a massive size that Britain's postal service, the Royal Mail, has had to limit the num...
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Accounting
by leon on April 11, 2007
Last month, the US Chamber of Commerce issued its much talked about report on market competitiveness which, among other things, raised the possibility that audit firms would provide better service and...
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risk
by leon on April 10, 2007
One of my favourite stories about predicting the future is the one about the noted futurist and business strategist Peter Schwartz. He was to chair a conference in New York. The theme: The Big Surpris...
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SOX
by leon on April 9, 2007
Just last month, I did blog entries on former Congressman and SOX co-writer Michael Oxley joining a law firm to help companies get around Sarbanes-Oxley and then joining Nasdaq.Now he's come out i...
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Ethics
by leon on April 9, 2007
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who spends a fair bit of his time lecturing Third World countries about the evils of corruption, is caught up in a scandal about his romantic partner getting a pro...
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SOX
by leon on April 7, 2007
As expected, the Securities and Exchange Commission this week moved to finalise guidelines for companies and auditors to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. This is supposed to mark the final stage of easing ...
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executive pay
by leon on April 7, 2007
Disturbing revelations from Bloomberg's Graef Crystal on the new pay democracy among the Wall Street Five.His piece on pay being set in smoke-filled rooms goes pretty close to suggesting out and o...
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Ethics
by leon on April 5, 2007
Earlier this year, I did a blog entry on the furore surrounding the Blair Government decision to drop the corruption probe into a massive defence deal involving BAE Systems, the world's fourth lar...
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boards of directors
by leon on April 5, 2007
As expected, most companies in the US are continuing to fill their board rooms with the same sorts of people: white, male and mostly in their 50s. According to a new report, Women on Boards: Missed Op...
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Compliance
by leon on April 4, 2007
Companies are still struggling to get their heads around important non-financial metrics like reputation risk, global competition, and increased scrutiny from the media and NGOs.A new Deloitte report ...
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SOX
by leon on April 4, 2007
Nearly five years after Sarbanes-Oxley was brought in, US regulators are still trying to sort out how much testing accountants will have to do in corporate audits.The Securities and Exchange Commissio...
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markets
by leon on April 3, 2007
Private equity firms that take over companies can be bad for jobs, but they can also be good, according to a new report from The Work Foundation.The report, Inside the dark box: shedding light on priv...
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Accounting
by leon on April 3, 2007
Demand for accountants has never been higher. Indeed, there's a shortage which is driving up beancounter salaries. But there's a problem.How are we going to fix the shortage if there are no ac...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 2, 2007
Interesting insights from Naomi Klein on what the jury selection selection process for Conrad Black's trial revealed.In her piece, published here on AlterNet, she argues that the jurors took a ver...
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risk
by leon on April 2, 2007
With reports of a US Senate committee pushing the Bush administration to return to international negotiations on climate change, and with the Democrat-controlled Congress now considering a flurry of e...
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risk
by leon on April 1, 2007
Earlier this year I did a blog entry identifying cyber crime among the top 10 business risks for 2007 and beyond. Greater technological complexity and more cross-border transactions make it online fra...
