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executive pay
by leon on July 31, 2006
Auditors have been put on notice about options backdating.The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued its first ever "audit practice alert" on options backdating."Auditors ...
Read more of PCAOB alert on backdating
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Accounting
by leon on July 31, 2006
If you believed becoming an accountant would get you prestige, think again.According to the latest Harris Poll Interactive survey, which measures public opinion of 23 professions and occupations, less...
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SOX
by leon on July 31, 2006
Today marks the four-year anniversary of the signing of Sarbanes-Oxley, arguably one of the most contentious pieces of legislation in US legislative history.It's also the most far-reaching in term...
Read more of Happy Birthday SOX
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litigation
by leon on July 28, 2006
Better corporate governance? Lawyers in the gun? A booming market? Or just a brief aberration?The number of new federal class-action lawsuits filed by angry investors has fallen dramatically and is no...
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corporate governance
by leon on July 28, 2006
Motorola has scrapped its poison pill defence.The question is whether this signals a change in the corporate governance landscape and whether the pills, part of a corporate defence strategy, are being...
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boards of directors
by leon on July 28, 2006
Women's progress up the corporate ladder is so slow that it would take them 40 years to catch up with men, according a new Catalyst study.The study found that average growth in the percentage of c...
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Ethics
by leon on July 27, 2006
What does a business have to do restore trust? And how long does it take? Would a public apology help?These are the sorts of questions examined in a new paper out of Wharton Promises and Lies: Restori...
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executive pay
by leon on July 27, 2006
In response to investor demands for more disclosure, the Securities and Exchange Commission has finally brought in rules that require US companies to come clean on the mega-sums of money they are payi...
Read more of New SEC rules: they're getting paid how much?
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corporate reputation
by leon on July 26, 2006
How long does it take a corporation to recover after its reputation has been damaged? More than three years according to research from global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.According to the r...
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risk
by leon on July 26, 2006
Imagine this. The worst case scenario happens and there's an outbreak of bird flu in your city and country. Call in the lawyers. Why?Suddenly, you have employees who refuse to come in to work beca...
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SOX
by leon on July 25, 2006
The biotech sector and small banks are the most vocal in their calls for exemptions from Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, reports CFO.com.The demands for exemptions are also coming from newspaper editor...
Read more of Fencing off Sarbox exemptions: SOX versus innovation and grassroots
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risk
by leon on July 24, 2006
First the good news.Fewer companies are Reporting financial loss from data breaches and the amount of money being lost is declining, according to the 2006 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey.Bu...
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Ethics
by leon on July 24, 2006
Is the Human Resources department an ethical minefield?That could become an important after the Department of Justice laid charges against Stephanie Jensen, the former vice president of HR at Brocade ...
Read more of Ethics challenges for HR
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Accounting
by leon on July 22, 2006
With the big accounting bodies on both sides of the Atlantic looking to overhaul leasing rules , potentially resulting in businesses to recognise liabilities they have until now kept off their balance...
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executive pay
by leon on July 21, 2006
The first executives have been charged with fraud in the stock options probe and there are more to come.The former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems Inc, Gregory Reyes, and another exe...
Read more of Execs charged in stock options probe - just a start
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Accounting
by leon on July 20, 2006
Big company balance sheets are set to be transformed with accounting bodies on both sides of the Atlantic agreeing to begin an overhaul of accounting rules that could potentially force corporations to...
Read more of Lease for change
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executive pay
by leon on July 19, 2006
Many companies exploited the 9/11 market decline to issue more stock options to their executives than they had during comparable periods in years past, according to a good piece of reporting in The Wa...
Read more of Stock Options and the 9/11 factor
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SOX
by leon on July 19, 2006
Financial control reporting provisions in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have resulted in companies hoarding cash at unprecedented levels, according to Federal Reserve board governor Kevin Warsh.But are other...
Read more of The Sarbox cash effect
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Compliance
by leon on July 18, 2006
Back in May, I blogged on how the Securities and Exchange Commission had turned itself into the grammar police in its campaign for plain English.But now it seems that the SEC only wants its own brand ...
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Accounting
by leon on July 18, 2006
Numbers all over the place.More than a year after they were imposed, chief executives and company directors in Britain are struggling to come to terms to, let alone understand, the new accounting rule...
Read more of Bosses baffled by accounting standards
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corporate governance
by leon on July 17, 2006
Backated options aren't just Limited to a few bad apples!Seems that more than 2200 US companies might have manipulated the timing of stock-option grants to executives between 1996 and 2005, accord...
Read more of The widespread practice of option timing
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SOX
by leon on July 17, 2006
This weekend, the deadline kicked in for overseas companies listed on US exchanges to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. And the response from European firms has been panic, reports Forbes. Some 17 per cent ...
Read more of Global SOX and poor relations
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corporate governance
by leon on July 17, 2006
Is the world's biggest bank too big? That seems to be the question as we watch Citigroup lurching from one governance problem to the next.Certainly was the view expressed to me last night over din...
Read more of Citibank's Japan problems
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corporate crime
by leon on July 15, 2006
US District Judge Amy St. Eve in Chicago has asked for more information about how beleaguered press Baron Conrad Black is paying his bills, according to the latest reports.Beleaguered? Okay, he's ...
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Ethics
by leon on July 14, 2006
Twelve months after Live 8, I interviewed Sir Bob Geldof on the issue of global poverty, corporate social responsibility, the Bill Gates-Warren Buffett mega- foundation and the problems confronting th...
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executive pay
by leon on July 13, 2006
Paul Atkins, a commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, has copped a fair pasting over his comments that spring loading - where companies grant stock options ahead of good news - are no...
Read more of Spring loading and insider trading
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SOX
by leon on July 12, 2006
Determined to cut costs of Sarbanes-Oxley without actually transforming it, the Securities and Exchange Commission has come out with its promised review.And it's being politically smart by asking ...
Read more of Cutting costs but no change: the SOX puzzle
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litigation
by leon on July 12, 2006
US farmers have launched a class action seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from Australian wheat export agency AWB, accusing it of racketeering, bribery, money laundering and frau...
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risk
by leon on July 11, 2006
With reports of bird flu now confirmed in Spain, the questions about how companies are preparing for a possible pandemic are getting louder.And a new study has raised serious questions about business ...
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regulators
by leon on July 11, 2006
The Securities and Exchanges Commission is in the firing line again with departing SEC commissioner Cynthia Glassman saying the SEC, the body that's supposed to enforce standards for financial rep...
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executive pay
by leon on July 11, 2006
The backdating probes are clearly having an impact on performance.Concerned that allegations of executives living it up after backdating options points to another Tyco, Adelphia or WorldCom, panicked ...
Read more of Options probe hits share prices
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Ethics
by leon on July 8, 2006
Ethics story of the week would have to be the Coke-Pepsi sting.In a nutshell three people, including an executive assistant at Coke, were busted and charged with stealing trade secrets, as well as a p...
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executive pay
by leon on July 7, 2006
Corporate governance watchdogs, the Corporate Library and institutional investment adviser Glass, Lewis & Co have revealed the warning signs for companies engaging in options backdating practices....
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corporate crime
by leon on July 6, 2006
Ken Lay is dead but the ghost of Enron lingers. Lay's death has stirred up an enormous response from the public.Some were saddened, but more were angry and furious at the timing. Some even went so...
Read more of The unfinished business of Ken Lay's legacy
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corporate crime
by leon on July 6, 2006
Ken Lay has died of a massive heart attack, according to news reports.``Ken Lay passed away early this morning in Aspen,'' his spokeswoman Kelly Kimberly said in a statement. ``The Lays have a...
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executive pay
by leon on July 5, 2006
Constantly on the ropes over their pay levels, CEOs are fighting back with the Business Roundtable releasing a study showing that their remuneration isn't that bad, reports The Wall Street Journal...
Read more of The CEO pay problem
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corporate governance
by leon on July 5, 2006
Generosity aside, Warren Buffett's gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has raised questioned questions about the governance of philanthropy.Concerns about governance and regulation have ...
Read more of Governance and the Gates mega-foundation
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risk
by leon on July 4, 2006
For all the talk about a new era of risk management, a report from Oversight Systems suggests it's more that - just talk - than action.According to the report, 68 per cent of companies said they h...
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executive pay
by leon on July 3, 2006
With Apple being the latest to admit there have been what it's called "irregularities'' with stock options, the fallout from the scandals is expected to send tremors through Silicon V...
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executive pay
by leon on July 3, 2006
With all the attention focused on the average CEO in the United States earning 262 times the pay of the average worker and with stock option fiddles now in the news, accounting professor J Edward Ketz...
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SOX
by leon on July 1, 2006
The headline tells one story, the piece says something else.The Financial Times headline and opening pars talk about almost one in five European companies listed in the US contemplating an exit to esc...
