Alix Stuart

 
 

Recent Articles

How the SEC Is Using Analytics to Spot Reporting Problems

January 29, 2013

The Securities and Exchange Commission is hard at work on a project, the Accounting Quality Model, that when finished could subject all financial filings to sophisticated analysis for risky accruals, accounting problems, and even fraud. SEC Chief Economist Craig Lewis described it as "a model that allows us to discern whether a registrant's financial statements stick out from the pack." Details inside.
 

Lawsuit Exposes Gaps in Loss Contingency Disclosures

December 18, 2012

Yahoo announced in late November that it was facing a $2.7 billion penalty as a result of a lawsuit in Mexico it lost against a phone directory company. The verdict surprised investors, since Yahoo hadn't reported the potential outcome as part of its loss contingency disclosure. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the SEC have made such disclosures a top priority in recent years, after complaints about too many litigation surprises. Details inside.
 

Are New Political Giving Disclosure Rules in the Offing?

November 27, 2012

After a record-setting amount of money was spent on the 2012 election cycle, pressure is mounting for new disclosure rules on political giving and related activities by companies, which could have thorny compliance requirements. "The complexities of what they could be and could create are somewhat mind-numbing," says Mark Renaud, a partner with the law firm Wiley Rein.
 

Big Data: For All Its Promise, Obstacles Remain Ahead

August 28, 2012

So Big Data has arrived, has immense potential, and could help compliance functions in all sorts of ways. Wonderful news—but that doesn't mean companies will be able to embrace the concept easily. In the last article of our four-part series on Big Data, we look at all the obstacles still remaining, from the availability of data to finding skilled Big Data workers, and more. The full story is inside.
 

Big Data Playing a Bigger Role in Fraud-Spotting

August 14, 2012

Ferreting out fraud has never been easy. Companies have largely relied on whistleblowers, investigators, and the mis-steps of perpetrators. Increasingly, however, they are turning to high-powered analytic tools that can crunch through enormous quantities of data. In part three of our Big Data series, we look at how companies are uncovering fraud by identifying anomalies and patterns impossible for human investigators to see themselves.
 

Big Data: Starting Small, Scaling Up

July 31, 2012

Corporate America is taken with Big Data right now, yes—but that doesn't mean the idea is, well, a big bang. "Familiar ideas writ large" may be more apt. In the second part of our Big Data series, we look at several businesses tip-toeing into Big Data for improved auditing and efficiency. "It's a lot of smaller, lower-value things we can do that, over time, should have a bigger impact," says Neil Frieser, head of audit for Frontier Communications.
 

Sustainability Grows on the Shareholder Agenda

April 17, 2012

Social and environmental issues continue their upward march in importance to shareholders, comprising 46 percent of the shareholder proposals filed so far this proxy season. "It's really about transparency: reporting what you're doing so that investors can decide if they agree with it or not," says Steve Starbuck, leader of Ernst & Young's climate change and sustainability practice. How can companies avoid nasty proxy fights? Read inside.
 

Sunshine Act Putting the Heat on Healthcare Firms

April 10, 2012

Drug companies and medical device makers still await final language for the "Sunshine Rules" of healthcare reform, but most are already building systems to comply with the disclosure requirements to come. Worry No. 1: that they won't be able to verify data that third parties give to them. "It's a fairly complex task to pull all the information together in a usable format," says Glenn Engelmann, former general counsel for the U.S. unit of Astra Zeneca.
 

New Swap Rules Put Compliance Burden on Dealers

April 03, 2012

Swaps dealers finally have a clear sense of their new compliance duties—and should prepare themselves accordingly. The new rules require them to measure market, credit, liquidity, and foreign exchange risks daily, and that could have a broad effect on the swaps market. "Corporate treasurers are not paying any attention, but they may find themselves scrambling to comply," says Andrea Kramer, a partner at law firm McDermott, Will & Emery.
 

ISS Compensation Peer Group Comparisons Raise Hackles

March 20, 2012

Corporate America has opened a new front on the executive pay wars, this time against proxy advisory firm ISS for its new method of benchmarking compensation packages. Disney and other corporate notables say ISS is using peer groups that differ sharply from the groups companies use themselves, and the approach "does not work well in many instances," says George Paulin, CEO of pay consulting firm Frederic W. Cook.
 
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