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Ethics
by leon on October 1, 2006
The question coming out of the hearings into Hewlett-Packard's pretexting scandal is to what extent executives were working together to subvert the law. If that's the case, then we could be lo...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 30, 2006
There's nothing holding back the new Che Guevara!Former Hollinger International chief and self-declared freedom fighter Conrad Black is applying to get his Canadian citizenship back .Black ditched...
Read more of Black into red?
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Ethics
by leon on September 30, 2006
AWB executives could face charges under Australia's anti-terror laws, but what about those Footprints left by the Australian Government?In a sensational final day of the official inquiry into the ...
Read more of AWB and Saddam's bunker
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corporate crime
by leon on September 29, 2006
Interesting to watch the response to the surprisingly lighter six year sentence imposed on former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow.Some days on, people are still trying to work it out, reports the Houston Chro...
Read more of Fastow's sentence: the response
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SOX
by leon on September 29, 2006
Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan has made the headlines again, coming out this week attacking Sarbanes-Oxley and saying it should be scrapped.According to the former Fed chief, Sarbanes-Oxl...
Read more of Greenspan's SOX reversal
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corporate crime
by leon on September 28, 2006
Don't trust anyone with an MBA next to their name!That seems to be the finding of a new study which has found that B-school students are more likely to cheat than students in other graduate progra...
Read more of Schools for scoundrels
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SOX
by leon on September 27, 2006
Last month, I examined notions about Sarbanes-Oxley principles being extended to non-profits.Now a new study from The Urban Institute reveals why extending it into the non-profit sector would be diffi...
Read more of SOX for non-profits
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boards of directors
by leon on September 26, 2006
Breaking the glass ceiling is not easy. According to one study, it would take women 40 years to catch up to men in the corporate world. That's assuming everything remains static on the other side ...
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risk
by leon on September 26, 2006
Economic espionage and theft of trade secrets have become big business opportunities and experts say companies might be leaving themselves wide open to information theft because they don't see the...
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executive pay
by leon on September 25, 2006
The web is buzzing over what can be described as the ultimate golden parachute. Yes, the stock option backdating scandal has reached new depths with revelations that cable TV operator Cablevision Syst...
Read more of Cablevision Systems: We pay dead people
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corporate crime
by leon on September 25, 2006
Former Enron chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling and chief financial officer Andy Fastow are moving in very different directions in the image they are presenting to the court at sentencing.
Read more of Skilling and Fastow: different paths to D-Day
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risk
by leon on September 25, 2006
Another sign of what it means to live in interesting times.risk, and not people, is now the top priority for executives, according to a survey from the consulting firm Accenture.According to the surve...
Read more of Risk now the top priority
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corporate crime
by leon on September 24, 2006
Beleaguered media baron Conrad Black has taken self-delusion to a new level.Not only is he innocent of plundering millions of dollars from his Hollinger newspaper empire. He reckons he is also a freed...
Read more of Conrad Black, freedom fighter
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Ethics
by leon on September 23, 2006
In the latest weird instalment to the Hewlett-Packard spying-pretexting scandal, Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who was scheduled to step down in January, has left the company and chief...
Read more of HP's apology not Hurd
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corporate governance
by leon on September 23, 2006
Just days after putting out his memo designed to allay staff concerns at Hewlett-Packard over the pretexting scandal, HP chief executive officer Mark Hurd seems to be in deep trouble with this week...
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Ethics
by leon on September 22, 2006
What are the tell-tale signs of a business train wreck?Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of Business, identifies seven warning signs.She goes into s...
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corporate governance
by leon on September 21, 2006
A new breed of investor is set to turn climate change into a corporate governance issue.What's emerging is the rise of the universal owners.These are institutions and pension funds that have holdi...
Read more of Global warming, governance and universal owners
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Ethics
by leon on September 21, 2006
Two key players in the AWB kickbacks scandal were on the White House guest list for US President george bush's official reception in May to honor Australian Prime Minister John Howard.Both men wer...
Read more of AWB honchos at Bush bash
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SOX
by leon on September 20, 2006
So massive changes to Sarbanes-Oxley are in the can with a new committee
stacked with business leaders and academics looking to recommend fixing the system? Think again.Securities and Exchange Commiss...
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Ethics
by leon on September 19, 2006
So the new season of "Survivor", where competitors are divided into four tribes - whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics - has been condemned everywhere, including myself on this blog where I ...
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Compliance
by leon on September 19, 2006
Here's some disturbing evidence from a study on compliance-readiness, or the lack of it.And with more companies going to court over employee email issues, or having their own emails subpoenaed, it...
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strategy
by leon on September 19, 2006
Most mergers end up as disasters. Studies shows that as many as 75 per cent fail to deliver value for shareholders.So why are so many mergers like groundhog Day? Why the same mistakes over and over ag...
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risk
by leon on September 18, 2006
Things are looking good but tread carefully. That's the warning that came out last week from the International Monetary Fund.Basically, the IMF has tipped strong economic growth continuing out of ...
Read more of Hazard lights for business
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SOX
by leon on September 16, 2006
So the trans-Atlantic slanging match has started over the pledge from Ed Balls, the economic secretary to the Treasury, to give Britain's Financial Services Authority, the City's main watchdog...
Read more of Stitching up SOX in London
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corporate crime
by leon on September 16, 2006
This Q&A with Enron juror Wendy Vaughan in Inc magazine confirms the warning signs of a company going under.Vaughan, a small business owner from Katy, Texas, confirms that the systemic arrogance, ...
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corporate governance
by leon on September 15, 2006
The Hewlett-Packard spy-pretexting fiasco will probably go down as a case study in flawed corporate governance.Here's a board that tried fixing a problem about a director leaking, and made a mess ...
Read more of HP's lessons for boardrooms
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strategy
by leon on September 14, 2006
Google has moved into philanthropy and, not surprisingly, the company is breaking new ground and killing a few sacred cows in the process.Google has set up a philanthropy to fight poverty, disease and...
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SOX
by leon on September 14, 2006
It's an interesting question and the answer, I suspect, is yes and no.Corporate governance regimes around the world have been overhauled in the aftermath of the corporate scandals led by Enron. Wh...
Read more of Is Sarbanes-Oxley the global standard?
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SOX
by leon on September 13, 2006
Just weeks after US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson delivered his first big speech advocating unwinding parts of Sarbanes-Oxley, a new commission is formed to look at changing Sarbanes-Oxley.And surpr...
Read more of New probe to change Sarbanes-Oxley: the fix is in
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Accounting
by leon on September 13, 2006
Yes, we all know accountants are the real winners out of Sarbanes-Oxley. The changes in the law have been an El Dorado for beancounters, something I have written about here, here and here.But it's...
Read more of Sarbanes-Oxley remakes accountants
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Ethics
by leon on September 12, 2006
Whenever companies are hit by scandal, we are told they're just bad apples. Don't believe it. The problem is a lot more complicated than that and usually, these sorts of scandals are best seen...
Read more of Hewlett-Packard and the pretexting economy
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corporate crime
by leon on September 11, 2006
True to form, Conrad Black has gone for attack as the best form of defence.Facing up to 40 years in jail for plundering Hollinger International, the newspaper group he used to lead, Black told reporte...
Read more of Bring it on, says Conrad Black
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Ethics
by leon on September 11, 2006
With Hewlett-Packard in turmoil over the dubious tactics used to used to access private phone records of board directors and journalists, HP chief executive officer Mark Hurd has put out a message to ...
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risk
by leon on September 10, 2006
Last month I wrote about the lost laptop lunacy where I revealed that four out of five US companies had lost at least one laptop containing sensitive information over the past year and that most compa...
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executive pay
by leon on September 9, 2006
Someone's sure making money out of the war on terror and soaring oil prices!Last year might have been another monster year for corporate CEO salaries but guess what: oil and defense industry execu...
Read more of The Post-9/11 Jackpot for defence and oil bosses
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corporate crime
by leon on September 9, 2006
Even after his death, Ken Lay continues to shape the debate over corporate crime and punishment.Prosecutors have asked the court hold off the late Enron chief's fraud and conspiracy convictions fr...
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executive pay
by leon on September 9, 2006
While Congress is looking into what it can do about options backdating and soaring executive pay, some interesting revelations have emerged in Australia about another options scam.ISS Australia has fo...
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boards of directors
by leon on September 7, 2006
Story of the week would have to be the revelations of Hewlett-Packard's chairwoman Patricia Dunn spying on the home phone records of the company's directors, as reported in full detail the New...
Read more of HP's phone bugging scandal: directors behaving badly
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SOX
by leon on September 6, 2006
The Securities and Exchange Commission has come out in defence of the Public Accounting Oversight Board against the lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.The lawsuit, filed in February by the Free...
Read more of SEC moves on PCAOB lawsuit
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Accounting
by leon on September 6, 2006
Everyone knows that Sarbanes-Oxley has been a licence to print money for auditors and accountants.And the latest figures from the CCH Public Accounting Report show that revenue growth rates reported b...
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SOX
by leon on September 6, 2006
Whistleblowers are now regarded as a key issue in the post Sarbanes-Oxley world with the law specifically providing them with protection from discrimination.But how many organisations have methodical ...
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corporate crime
by leon on September 5, 2006
Wonder how long it will be before Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel crack open the canned tuna or Campbells Chunky Soup?You gotta feel sorry for the press baron due to go on trial next year on c...
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SOX
by leon on September 5, 2006
There are lots of reasons for the explosive growth in private equity.An obvious one is low interest which makes debt very cheap. Another is the growing pool money pouring in from pension fund, banks a...
Read more of Private Equity: The SOX effect?
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SOX
by leon on September 2, 2006
SOX-bashers say Sarbanes-Oxley and US accounting regulations are deterring companies from listing in the US.But the numbers tell a different story.Like Mark Twain's death, reports of the demise of...
Read more of SOX and the lure of the IPO
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risk
by leon on September 2, 2006
With primaries shaping up as a referendum on Iraq, The Economist carries an interesting and counter-intuitive report that the war is turning out to be surprisingly bad for the big five defence contrac...
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strategy
by leon on September 1, 2006
An embarrassing leak or another case of viral marketing?The official line from Microsoft is that it's investigating how two hilarious training videos starring Ricky Gervais as his character in the...
