Articles | Compliance Week – Page 288
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Q&A: The Battle for Better Disclosure Data
Image: As part of our ongoing series of conversations with compliance and risk experts, we spoke with Hudson Hollister, founder and executive director, Data Transparency Coalition, a trade association pursuing the publication of government information as standardized, machine-readable data. Hollister talks about the SEC’s efforts to modernize its disclosure regime ...
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Anti-Corruption Reforms Push Forward in Mexico
Mexico has moved forward again on its quest to strengthen anti-corruption laws there, adopting reforms to clear the path for government authorities to uncover and prosecute acts of corruption committed by companies, individuals, and government officials. More legislative work is ahead, but so far Mexico’s laws might even surpass the ...
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More Banks Tying Pay to Corporate Values
More financial institutions, facing pressure from regulators and investors, are starting to tie compensation practices to ethical behavior and appropriate risk-taking—although progress has been slow. “A consistent leadership culture is necessary in which corporate values, business strategy, and formal incentives support each other,” said Jürgen Fitschen, co-chair of the group ...
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SEC Rule on Pay-for-Performance Triggers Criticism on TSR Metric
Image: The SEC’s proposed pay-for-performance rule would require companies to disclose the relationship between executive compensation and Total Shareholder Return. A simple and effective metric? Not everyone thinks so. “At first blush it’s intuitive: executives should win as shareholders win,” says Barry Sullivan of compensation consulting firm Semler Brossy. The ...
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Financial Compliance Teams Await Tech Help on Revenue Rule
Improved technology for financial systems will be critical as Corporate America moves to implement the impending new revenue recognition standard. That new tech, however, is slow-rolling its way to your data center, since the standard’s final guidance is still incomplete. “We knew going in we were not playing on a ...
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The Ever-Growing CD&A Disclosure Battles
Image: Proxy season may be winding down now, but expect a long summer of debate about disclosure of executive pay. This week Compliance Week offers a trio of articles about compensation, starting with all the new pressures on Compensation Discussion & Analysis. “There is still a bit of a push-pull, ...
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FIFA Fallout Has Banks Fearing Due Diligence Failures
The FIFA corruption scandal has pulled many banks—HSBC, Barclays, Citigroup, Bank of America—into its orbit, although none have tumbled into the black hole just yet. The case does, however, send a vivid message on the importance of enhanced due diligence processes. “It is not enough to know your customer,” says ...
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New ‘Blacklisting’ Rules Have Contractors in Uproar
Image: Uncle Sam is poised to impose sweeping new reporting obligations on government contractors to disclose labor law violations for the prior three years. Trade associations are spitting nails over the rules, but meanwhile, compliance officers have yet another reporting risk that needs process and attention. “You don’t want a ...
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ITT Complaint Shows Off-Balance-Sheet Woes Aren’t Off-Stage Yet
An SEC lawsuit against ITT Educational Services could shape up to be another textbook case of what goes wrong when companies try to deal with problematic accounting away from the eye of investors. The problem this time: off-balance sheet vehicles that masked ITT’s defaulting student loans. Where were the auditors? ...
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The Workflows You Need to Use After a Data Breach
Compliance officers have enough scrambling to do after a data breach. Not understanding the steps to take, or not being in proper position to take them, only makes matters worse. Inside, guest columnist John Reed Stark walks through all the steps your company needs to take—including those to take before ...
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How Do You Solve a Problem Like EDGAR?
Image: In a way, the person who submitted false filings to the SEC last month proposing a fictional takeover of Avon Products did the corporate filing community a favor: He reminded everyone how bad the SEC’s EDGAR filing database can be. Ideas to modernize EDGAR are many; ability to achieve ...
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Demystifying the Risks of Board-Level Risk Committees
Image: In the wake of the financial crisis, many large financial institutions created new, board-level risk committees to oversee their most critical risk issues. For other industries, the decision to create a risk committee isn’t so simple—and isn’t without some risk-taking itself. “You have to guard against the risk that ...
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Export Control Reform Still Lags, Leaving Compliance Programs in Lurch
Image: Anyone involved in international trade might hope that one day, in the long run, export control reform will alleviate the compliance burden companies face now. In the short run, however, expect even more pain as reform ideas inch along. “This is one of the most complex and changing environments ...
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CCOs Need to Be Schooled on Effective Training
Compliance and ethics training needs to move beyond the standard training video and PC-based testing. While online tests are an adequate exercise in rote memorization, experts say the future of effective training means understanding the unique psychologies of the workforce and managers, customizing your messages, and shaping training objectives around ...
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FSOC Report Offers Tea Leaves for Future Regulatory Focus
What are the top threats to the U.S. financial system? In a new report, the Financial Stability Oversight Council cites cyber-security, financial innovations, and high-frequency trading among the problems regulators must address. Critics fret, however, that the agency wants “to get rid of the capital markets and replace everything with ...
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Lessons From the BHP Billiton Case
Image: If compliance officers needed another reminder that the FCPA’s books-and-records provisions are still a dangerous trap for global businesses, look no further than the SEC’s recent $25 million fine against BHP Billiton. Observers say it offers valuable lessons in the SEC’s expansive interpretation of the law. “A check-the-box compliance ...
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Fighting Complexity With Integrated Compliance Efforts
More than ever before, managing compliance risk now requires a framework that unifies decentralized compliance activities. The goal: to streamline monitoring, testing, and reporting. That may sound difficult in theory—and, well, it’s difficult in practice too. Inside we have tales from Coca-Cola and Kimberly-Clark on how they try to integrate ...
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More Hints at More Audit Committee Disclosure
Image: The SEC plans a concept release “soon” that could modernize audit committee disclosures for the first time in years, including touchy subjects like naming the audit engagement partner. Expect awkward questions to follow about how audit firms are hired and perform the work they do. “This foreshadows what I ...
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Resolving Compliance and HR Turf Wars
Image: Compliance and HR have been tussling for years over which function owns company culture, when the truth is both have a crucial role to play. “If HR and compliance could come together and realize and accept that they’re on the same team … it could be a really powerful ...
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The Next Plateau for CCOs: Becoming Leaders
Image: More and more evidence suggests compliance officers are now sitting alongside other senior corporate leaders at their organizations—so now they need to exercise that leadership role properly. That was the discussion at Compliance Week 2015, and we have all the insights inside. “More compliance officers are being asked for ...