Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 31, 2005

More evidence about the impact of SOX Section 404 with restatements of earnings hitting an all-time record according to the latest figures from Glass Lewis . The firm, which provides research for inst...

Biggest ethical breaches of 2005

Filed in archive Ethics by leon on December 30, 2005

So what are the biggest ethics breaches for 2005?First there's the rogue's gallery (and some winners) in the Associated Press piece. It's a list that includes Harry Stonecipher, the Boeing...

The compliance treadmill.

Filed in archive Compliance by leon on December 29, 2005

First the good news. It's a great time to be an accountant or an IT specialist. Florida-based Kforce Professional Staffing has released Salary & Employment Guides showing that there will be a ...

Enron: Causey pleads guilty

Filed in archive corporate crime by leon on December 28, 2005

Prosecutors in the Enron trial got a late Christmas present with Enron's chief accounting officer Richard Causey entering a guilty plea. The deal is expected to include testifying in the trial in ...

Coke and severance pay: the beginning of a trend?

Filed in archive shareholder activism by leon on December 28, 2005

Last week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced that Coca Cola had agreed to a change that requires it to get shareholder approval for generous severance payments that amount to at lea...

Enron: the SOX backlash continues

Filed in archive corporate crime by leon on December 27, 2005

The backlash against Sarbanes-Oxley never ceases to amaze me. On the eve of the trial of Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and Richard Causey, the calls are coming out to rein in prosecutors who are doing their ...

Regulatory and security tips for 2006

Filed in archive Compliance by leon on December 27, 2005

After years of struggling with Sarbanes-Oxley and other bits and pieces of regulation, CSOs say compliance is about to get worse. They predict regulation will be messier and complicated in 2006. The b...

Spitzer: crusader or thug?

Filed in archive regulators by leon on December 26, 2005

New York Attorney-General Elliot Spitzer's campaign over the last five years to expose corporate crooks and win billions in restitution has entered a new stage. So has power has gone to Spitzer...

Non-executive directors: independence or competence?

Filed in archive boards of directors by leon on December 24, 2005

Much has been said about the importance of having independent directors. Trouble is all the studies are inconclusive. Now a new study suggests suggests independent directors are not as effective. Not ...

Corporate Crime Line-Up

Filed in archive corporate crime by leon on December 22, 2005

The White Collar Crime Blog alerts us to former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio being hauled in on 42 charges of insider trading. In a handy addition, it also provides us with the indictment. Nacchio has now be...

London Calling: The SOX impact overseas

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 21, 2005

Compliance costs and regulatory requirements of SOX are delivering big opportunites for the London Stock exchange which has reported a record 129 international companies from 29 countries listing ther...

Beancounters and civilisation

Filed in archive Accounting by leon on December 20, 2005

Say what you want about accountants but new research dating back to Sumerian times (that's around 7500 BC) suggests that beancounters laid the foundations for civilisation by enabling the developm...

The SOX balancing act

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 19, 2005

Sarbanes-Oxley has turned into a tightrope performance. But that's what comes when you are trying to serve two masters: investor confidence and public companies.The latest developments suggest SOX...

Send in the lawyers: Sarbanes-Oxley court challenges ahead

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 17, 2005

Sarbanes-Oxley will be hit with court challenges next year. So says the conservative limited government group, the Free Enterprise Fund. The warning comes in a piece that examines the two lawsuits tha...

Sarbanes-Oxley hits employee morale

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 16, 2005

Plenty of talk about the financial costs of Sarbanes-Oxley, the latest coming from oil giant BP which says SOX is costing it $100 million a year and findings from Gartner that IT financial compliance ...

I was a victim, says Enron chief: The response

Filed in archive corporate crime by leon on December 15, 2005

Former Enron chief Ken Lay is in the news again with his extraordinary claim that he was the victim of a "wave of terror" by prosecutors and that his only fault was trusting the company'...

$11.5 million pay - for five months work

Filed in archive executive pay by leon on December 15, 2005

Morgan Stanley has form on Executive paypackets. In July, it rewarded former chief executive Philip Purcell's failure with $44 million in cash. Now the second biggest securities firm by market val...

Ballmer shops for his own xBox: a legal mystery

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 14, 2005

lawyers all over the world are still scratching their heads trying to work out what the hell Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer meant when he'll have to buy his xBox because of Sarbanes...

Spinning ethics

Filed in archive Ethics by leon on December 13, 2005

Download the file and you'll find some good news and bad news in the latest KPMG forensic Integrity Survey. There's been no real decrease in the amount of unethical activity going on inside co...

Liability caps: the backlash from regulators

Filed in archive Accounting by leon on December 12, 2005

At the end of last month I posted an entry on the growth of ''liability caps". These are arrangements where companies that run into accounting problems can't turn around and sue their...

Attorney-client privilege: tough calls ahead

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 12, 2005

For lawyers post-SOX, it's a whole new ball game. More headaches and tough decisions. And plenty of work.The requirements brought in under Sarbanes-Oxley have re-written the rules, particularly in...

SOX unwound

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 10, 2005

The question now is whether the unwinding of Sarbanes-Oxley is on the agenda with the SEC Subcommittee on Internal Controls recommending to exempt the smallest public companies from the much-hated Sec...

Fighting shareholders

Filed in archive corporate governance by leon on December 10, 2005

Stock holders are in a fighting mood. Hedge funds, trade unions, and shareholder activists are putting US corporations under increasing heat, according to the latest research from proxy firm Georgeson...

SOX and social costs of fraud

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 9, 2005

Interesting piece in the New Yorker by James Surowieki looking at the impact of fraud on the broader economy. Surowieki make the very good point that it's not just the people who are ripped off th...

Email risk

Filed in archive risk by leon on December 8, 2005

How does email put a company at risk? In many ways, says Missouri-based IT lawyer Dennis Kennedy. Writing in the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal, Kennedy argues that personal emails at work (and tha...

Does complexity create scandals?

Filed in archive Accounting by leon on December 7, 2005

US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has told the American Institute of CPAs conference that the complexity of the accounting system was partly to blame for corporate scandal...

SOX: the impact on markets and investment

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 7, 2005

The latest figures show that Sarbanes Oxley regulations made 2005 a big year for e-business, and that this will continue in 2006. But what impact will that have that on markets and other investment? G...

Failing to learn from failure

Filed in archive strategy by leon on December 5, 2005

Warnings from the 9/11 Commission members that the US is at great risk of more attacks raises serious questions about whether the Government has learned from mistakes. But it's also a reminder tha...

Can SOX compliance work?

Filed in archive SOX by leon on December 5, 2005

Will Sarbanes-Oxley change the way corporations deal with the world? The jury is still out on that one.Ventana Research raised questions about its effectiveness following last month's indictment o...

Triumph of the beancounters

Filed in archive Accounting by leon on December 4, 2005

A sobering piece in the Sunday Times about how much accountants are cleaning up from Sarbanes-Oxley and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). Audit fees of the Big Four - Pricewaterhouse...

Business Philosophy

Filed in archive Ethics by leon on December 4, 2005

What role does philosophy have in business? Plenty, according to the Norwegian Government's Petroleum Fund which has has just hired professional philosopher and author Henrik Syse to work out what...

The Growing Clout of Hedge Funds

Filed in archive strategy by leon on December 3, 2005

Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal about how distressed power producer Calpine's pending bankruptcy is highlighting the growing clout of hedge hunds to force changes in corporate strateg...

Fat Merger Payouts and Incentives

Filed in archive executive pay by leon on December 2, 2005

Are we entering a new Guilded Age? The M&A boom has resulted in the explosion of merger-related payouts where CEOs get huge windfalls when there's a takeover.This raises the obvious question o...

Detecting fraud: a matter of luck

Filed in archive corporate crime by leon on December 1, 2005

Globally, the 45 per cent of companies reporting fraud now is up 8 percentage points on two years ago, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Economic Crime Survey for 2005. Here's the sca...