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markets
by leon on April 30, 2008
Several weeks ago, I asked whether the Fed's bailout of Bear Stearns raised questions about moral hazard, where certain parties are led to believe they will not be held accountable.Now, we have f...
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risk
by leon on April 30, 2008
With the Rockefellers, the founding family behind ExxonMobil, embarrassing the company by calling for Rex Tillerson to hand over part of his responsibilities as both chairman and chief executive and ...
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corporate governance
by leon on April 29, 2008
Call it the Sarbanes-Oxley effect.With Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, Flowserve Corporation and AB Volvo coming to grief over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - that's three FC...
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executive pay
by leon on April 29, 2008
Investor activists are making the most of the push for "say on pay" proposals, where they get an annual, non-binding vote on the compensation of top executives, with more than 90 U.S. compa...
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corporate reputation
by leon on April 28, 2008
It didn't take him long. Jérôme Kerviel, the trader and computer whiz who evaded Société Générale's electronic risk-control systems has landed a new job - working for an IT consultancy.He has...
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strategy
by leon on April 28, 2008
Questions are rising about the ethics of companies pouring money into sponsoring the Beijing Olympics.By abetting the genocide in Darfur, the Chinese Government has turned the event into the "Ge...
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SOX
by leon on April 27, 2008
In case you missed it, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board had its fifth birthday last week on April 25.So to help celebrate, Sarah Johnson at CFO.com reviews its short life life by the num...
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Compliance
by leon on April 26, 2008
Is fair disclosure the same as full disclosure?It's an important question in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis where investors clearly were not given sufficient information. Louis Thompson...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 26, 2008
Organized criminal networks have now established links in the international energy market and have targeted the international financial system by injecting billions of illicit funds to try to corrupt...
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regulators
by leon on April 26, 2008
Bad actor Wesley Snipes has made his name beating up terrorists, vampires and cops but he's no match for the Internal Revenue Service.Today, he has been sent to jail for three years for failing t...
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shareholder activism
by leon on April 25, 2008
Signs that climate change is becoming an issue for investors.A new report by Ceres, Mutual Funds and Climate Change, has found that mutual funds are starting to more notice of climate change.The rese...
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markets
by leon on April 25, 2008
Earlier this year, I was looking at what shape the recession would be. Would it be a U, V, W or L-shaped?RGE Monitor chairman and New York University professor of economics Nouriel Roubini writes tha...
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strategy
by leon on April 25, 2008
After writing off nearly $38 billion of bone-headed investments since the subprime crisis began last year, more than any other lender, and destroying all the profit it had generated since 2004, troub...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 25, 2008
Just over a week ago I looked at the implications of a High Court ruling in London overturning the British government decision to drop an investigation into alleged bribery and corruption in a major ...
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markets
by leon on April 23, 2008
In the past, I have looked at how analysts are not as independent as they claim. There was evidence showing they are susceptible to various gifts and favors.And now the credit crunch and weakening ec...
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Accounting
by leon on April 23, 2008
Auditors take note: from now on, you will have to tell audit committees all about compromising links BEFORE you do any work for them.As expected, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has bro...
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regulators
by leon on April 23, 2008
The the US Environmental Protection Agency might have lifted a week-old suspension of IBM from seeking new federal IT work but the shock waves and fallout from this case will continue. IBM is not out...
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Ethics
by leon on April 22, 2008
Are millennials more inclined to cheat to get ahead?That seems to be suggestion from Barbara Keats, associate professor of management at the WP Carey School of Business.Keats argues that this generat...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 22, 2008
The Siemens saga rolls on and if Siemens management thought things would settle down, they need to have a long think. This case is getting messier and messier by the day.First, the company's form...
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markets
by leon on April 21, 2008
Signs for the US economy are looking bad with Bloomberg reporting that US companies are now getting more pessimistic.All this coincides with reports that sales of new and existing homes in the US dro...
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Accounting
by leon on April 20, 2008
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is looking at a new independence rule designed to force auditors to come clean on their links with corporations.The PCAOB has announced it will hold an o...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 18, 2008
In the past, I have done blog entries here and here looking at how the FBI is increasingly focusing on mortgage fraud.Now we have Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller warning that ...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 17, 2008
In the past, I have looked at Samsung's bribery scandal and allegations that samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee set up a $225 million slush fund to buy art for his art museum director wife.The good new...
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markets
by leon on April 17, 2008
Money is better than poverty, as Woody Allen once said, if only for financial reasons.Still, many studies have found that the equation between happiness and money is a conundrum. Average incomes have...
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Accounting
by leon on April 16, 2008
Accounting firm Grant Thornton has been hauled over the coals by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for its slack audits.With one client, the so-called experts at Grant Thornton failed to ...
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regulators
by leon on April 16, 2008
Back in February, I looked at how Wesley Snipes had been found a little guilty of tax dodging. He was cleared of federal tax-fraud and conspiracy charges but found guilty of three misdemeanor counts ...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 16, 2008
Last month, I looked at how Siemens was struggling to change its bribe-prone culture. At the time, I said it would take more than a new chief executive to root out the corrupt practices inside the co...
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regulators
by leon on April 15, 2008
Fewer large corporations are getting audited. Instead, the Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on smaller corporations, particularly for those with $50 million or less in assets. While big corp...
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Ethics
by leon on April 14, 2008
Massive implications from last week's High Court decision in London overturning the British government decision to drop an investigation into alleged bribery and corruption in a major deal betwee...
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boards of directors
by leon on April 14, 2008
Following the uproar over the scandals linking corrupt to corrupt politicians, and corporate money finding its way into the pockets of both parties, company directors say they want disclosure. But cl...
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strategy
by leon on April 12, 2008
In times of recession, people's thoughts turn to survival. And there are a series of tried and true strategies for individuals and companies.For individuals, it's about networking furiously, ...
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SOX
by leon on April 11, 2008
Much has been said about Sarbanes-Oxley stopping backdating. But is that true? Has it actually improved corporate governance?Under Sarbanes-Oxley, all high-level executive stock option grants and exe...
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markets
by leon on April 10, 2008
With the International Monetary Fund warning that the United States will slump into recession following the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, billionaire George Soros now warns it w...
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litigation
by leon on April 10, 2008
Earlier this month, I looked at how class actions were on the rise, up 21 per cent, from 92 in 2006 to 111 in 2007. At the time, I suggested that the subprime crisis may well drive the trend and send...
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Accounting
by leon on April 9, 2008
To what extent is the subprime meltdown the result of an accounting technique?In theory, mark to market accounting sounds neat because it potentially gives a more realistic take by assigning a value ...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 9, 2008
Last month, I did a blog entry looking at data showing a big drop in efforts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, postal service and Internal Revenue Service in fighting white co...
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corporate governance
by leon on April 9, 2008
Chinese stock markets seem to be headed for free fall. The bubble is deflating and the losses for investors make what's happening in the US look like a picnic, reports the Los Angeles Times' ...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 8, 2008
The best example of the link between lobbying and fraudulent companies was Enron. In its day, Enron had Enron had gained favours by lobbying Congress, federal and state governments, and various regul...
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strategy
by leon on April 8, 2008
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Benjamin Disraelisatan delights equally in statistics and in quoting scripture - HG Wells."Statistics can be comple...
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risk
by leon on April 8, 2008
Nearly $240 million in reported losses from Internet Crime, up $40 million from last year, according to figures reported to the FBI.The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a joint venture between the FB...
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corporate reputation
by leon on April 5, 2008
Who is to blame for the Bear Stearns collapse?Bear Stearns president and CEO Alan Schwartz has taken a leaf out of the books of former Enron chief Kenneth Lay who complained that business journalists...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 4, 2008
Former Enron boss Jeffrey Skilling, who has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for insider trading and fraud, has begun his appeal against the sentence.His lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, pleaded for his c...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 3, 2008
From the Globe and Mail, we have the first of Conrad Black's prison letters. And it sounds like the convicted fraudster is holding up quite well.The letter, which comes with the insignia across t...
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corporate crime
by leon on April 3, 2008
The fallout from the Société Générale trading scandal grows stranger and stranger.Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader who ran up losing Société Générale €5 billion ($7 billion) in losses is now suing hi...
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litigation
by leon on April 2, 2008
Some worrying signs on the class action front and it's going to get a whole lot worse.Class actions are on the increase and the median settlement figure has Spiked, according to the latest releas...
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executive pay
by leon on April 2, 2008
Absolutely disgusting! Chief executive officers, the group representing the most spoiled and richest section of society, are getting tax gross-ups.A Corporate Library study found that one in five US ...
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SOX
by leon on April 2, 2008
After the US Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, US companies were forced to overhaul their systems of corporate governance. A Raft of changes were introduced. Auditors were required repo...
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markets
by leon on April 2, 2008
The pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) always raises one interesting question. Who benefits?Data shows that IPOs in the United States are underpriced an average of 15 percent. Translated, tha...
