Phil Angelides, former California state treasurer and now head of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, says he just doesn’t understand how Wall Street executives can claim they never saw the meltdown coming. In his view, the evidence was sitting in plain view, especially in places like Florida and California where bad home loans were piling […]
Jose Tabuena
Posted inFrom the Archive
Why GRC Matters to the Internal Auditor
Plenty of management fads have come and gone, each touted as the Next Big Thing to take Corporate America to higher success. We’ve seen Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning, change management, and more, each creating its own cottage industry. Where does “GRC”—governance, risk, and compliance, a moniker created by the consulting world—fit within […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Key steps for auditing the legal department
Despite the prominence of the general counsel, little is known about the operations of the legal function. Internal auditors do have an opportunity here to examine and improve the efficiency of in-house counsel and its management of external counsel.
Posted inInternal Controls
Auditing the HR Function
Workforce issues such as recruitment, retention, diversity, and business conduct are often the expression of a company’s commitment to good values. A company with poor values is probably going to have confused and disgruntled employees. So it should be no surprise that human resource (HR) issues have been at the forefront of major business frauds […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Internal Audit’s Role in Preventing FCPA Violations
It seems like old news, but no matter how often Corporate America says it knows what to do, we just keep hearing about high-profile cases of violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In 2009 we again saw record levels of FCPA enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
The Increasing Risk of Procurement Fraud
Of all the forms of white-collar crime, procurement fraud is probably the least visible yet the most costly. That’s largely because it’s a hidden byproduct of seemingly legitimate transactions, often involving millions of dollars, between a business and supposedly legitimate vendors. What’s more, the organizations victimized by procurement fraud often don’t report it and choose […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Auditing Executive Compensation Policies
Executive compensation has been a hot topic for years, but it has been getting a lot more political and public scrutiny lately. Some argue that the furor is misplaced, but without question executive pay has become a target of regulator and shareholder attention. Many people believe it to be a cause—if not the cause—of last […]
Posted inInternal Controls
Auditing Governance: It Can Be Done
A few columns ago, I posited the idea that you can develop an integrated approach to auditing corporate governance, risk, and compliance. First I explored auditing compliance, and the risk. Now I will conclude the series and explain (finally) how governance (the “G” in GRC) provides the foundation that binds these disciplines together in a […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Auditing GRC: Getting Down to Brass Tacks
In my last two columns I’ve been delving into the challenge of auditing governance, risk, and compliance in a unified fashion. I still have a final column to write on that subject (auditing GRC from a governance perspective) but I want to interrupt things this month to talk about the skills and knowledge an auditor […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Evaluating and Auditing Risk-Management Policies
In hindsight, selling all those bundles of toxic sub-prime loans seems ridiculous. But let’s not forget the truth: Many investment funds selling precisely such products were once viewed with enthusiasm. How did that happen? Why did risk management, and common sense, fail to safeguard against the financial crisis? And where were the control departments—namely compliance […]
