Filed in archive SOX
by leon on December 30, 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...
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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...
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Filed in archive Compliance
by leon on December 28, 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...
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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...
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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...
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Filed in archive corporate crime
by leon on December 26, 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...
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Filed in archive Compliance
by leon on December 26, 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...
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Filed in archive regulators
by leon on December 25, 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...
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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...
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Filed in archive corporate crime
by leon on December 21, 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...
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Filed in archive SOX
by leon on December 20, 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...
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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...
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Filed in archive SOX
by leon on December 18, 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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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