Corporate America is bracing for more rules, regulations, and compliance obligations coming from Washington. That means ethics and compliance officers will face fresh challenges in their endless quest to make their companies’ compliance programs “effective.” At a recent forum of compliance executives held by the Rand Center for Corporate Ethics and Governance in Arlington, Va., […]
Carlson Caron
Posted inTechnology
Making the Most of ERP Systems for IT Control
Enterprise resource planning software is designed to reach into all corners of an organization and integrate the data throughout the whole company. But when it comes to compliance, cracks remain. ERP systems can show good return on investment for the pieces of compliance that they handle well, such as transaction compliance, segregation of duties, and […]
Posted inEthics & Culture
Worried About FCPA? Don’t Mention It
What is the best way to convince foreign nationals to agree to a corporate policy on complying with a U.S. law? In some cases, don’t mention the law. That’s one lesson Dana Nahlen, senior international counsel at EDS, has learned during her 26 years in the international compliance field. While a compliance policy can—and should—be […]
Posted inBoards & Shareholders
The Heads Keep Rolling in CEO, CFO Offices
CEOs and CFOs left their jobs in record numbers last year, and filing a financial restatement is proving to be an increasingly common way to be shown the door. Of companies that filed restatements in 2007, more than 20 percent also saw the departure of their CEOs—up from only 16.9 percent in 2006 and 13.2 […]
Posted inInternal Controls
New Risks (and Controls) in Hiring Programs
When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced plans two years ago to shift its focus to “systemic discrimination” in the office, it wasn’t kidding: In 2007, the EEOC more than doubled the number of enforcement actions from the previous year and recovered record-setting monetary awards. Drug store giant Walgreens suffered the largest hit; last year, […]
Posted inBoards & Shareholders
Quelling Activists’ Revolt on Human Rights
In every sense of the phrase, Weatherford International recently decided it wouldn’t stand the heat in Sudan. The $7.8 billion oilfield services company faced strong shareholder opposition to doing business in the war-torn, authoritarian nation. Sudan is a small market for Weatherford anyways, which employs more than 40,000 people. So in March, the company ceased […]
Posted inInternal Controls
The Sustainability Officer’s Rising Role
As the pressure grows on corporations to become more environmentally and socially responsible, so too do the responsibilities of today’s chief sustainability officer. No longer focused narrowly on compliance and risk associated with a company’s environmental impact, chief sustainability officers now reach out to all constituencies—management, shareholders, customers, and employees—and convey the benefits of environmental […]
Posted inBoards & Shareholders
Getting Use Out of Compliance Committees
Shareholders in a 75-year-old investment bank become nervous and begin to flee, causing the bank’s stock price to plummet from $100 to $2 in one month. A surgeon at a hospital in Minneapolis removes a patient’s healthy kidney rather than the cancerous one. A 20-story crane collapses at a New York construction site and kills […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
How the Modern CCO Came to Be
An anonymous call came over the manufacturer’s hotline: a claim that an employee was taking kickbacks. The caller told the chief compliance officer where to look for evidence, and the ensuing investigation identified three wrongdoers—plus an atmosphere of bad feelings and co-workers fearing for their safety. The wrongdoers were fired, the matter was referred for […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
NAFTA Records Case Dropped, but Little Clarity
Ford Motor Co. dodged a $41.9 million bullet in December when U.S. Customs dropped its effort to collect a NAFTA recordkeeping penalty, but it’s too soon for importers to breathe a collective sigh of relief: The government won’t say why it dropped the penalty claim, and it remains unclear what NAFTA records it will demand […]