You might not have noticed it amid all the political bickering and budgetary crises happening in Washington these days, but the centerpiece of the Dodd-Frank Act—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—is finally getting off the ground. The new agency, with a broad mandate to regulate mortgages, credit cards, payday loans, and pretty much any other financial […]
Melissa Klein Aguilar
Posted inUncategorized
Beazer CEO Returns $6.5M to Settle SEC Clawback Suit
The chief executive officer of Atlanta-based homebuilder Beazer Homes will pay back $6.5 million in bonus pay and stock profits to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint brought against him under the clawback provision of Sarbanes-Oxley. According to the SEC complaint, Beazer CEO Ian McCarthy failed to reimburse the company for cash bonuses, incentive and […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Compliance Professionals Mostly Upbeat on Budgets, Staffing for 2011
Finally some good news: Compliance and ethics professionals are feeling more optimistic about their resources and job security in 2011, according to data gathered by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance Association. 2010 was a better year for compliance budgets, staffing, and job security, and those trends are expected […]
Posted inBoards & Shareholders
More to 2011 Proxy Season Than Just Say-on-Pay Votes
Yep, proxy season is upon us again. Not surprisingly, shareholder votes on executive compensation will dominate this year’s activism, but senior executives and board directors will still have plenty of other worries as well. 2011 is the first year that all publicly traded companies must give their shareholders say-on-pay votes (thank you, Dodd-Frank Act), and […]
Posted inUncategorized
Parsing the Early Say-on-Pay Votes
The vast majority of companies so far have gotten the thumbs up from investors on their pay plans, but getting investors to approve a biennial or triennial say-on-pay vote frequency is proving a tougher sell, early voting results show. Of 95 companies that held say-on-pay votes as of Feb. 25, 93 had favorable votes. The […]
Posted inUncategorized
Dodd-Frank Rules on Bank Pay, More on SEC Agenda
The Securities and Exchange Commission is set to take up four of the items on its Dodd-Frank Act rulemaking agenda next week, including a proposal to limit risky incentive pay practices by financial firms. The Commission has scheduled an open meeting on March 2, where it plans to consider whether to propose rules governing incentive-based pay […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Report Details HSR Antitrust Reviews, Enforcement
2010 was apparently a busy year for merger and acquisition activity and, therefore, for antitrust enforcers. Following two years of decline, deals reported to antitrust enforcers under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Program grew 63 percent in 2010. The number of transactions reported to the agencies under the HSR Act rose to 1,166 in fiscal year […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
Lessons From the Facebook Firing
A settlement with the National Labor Relations Board in the high-profile “Facebook firing” case has turned conventional wisdom on corporate policies that govern employee use of the Internet and social media on its ear. The language in those policies could now get employers in trouble with the NLRB. American Medical Response of Connecticut Inc. agreed […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Anti-corruption Trends: What to Expect in 2011
A reminder for compliance professionals who think they’ve got Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance in the bag: Don’t forget to do a regular gut check. It’s often said, but it bears repeating: That program you have in place only works if it’s properly implemented and monitored. “Companies often put a program in place and think […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Survey Sheds Light on Financial Services Compliance
Compliance officers struggling to manage the current avalanche of regulatory changes may be interested in how some of their counterparts in the financial services industry are spending their time these days. Among 337 financial services compliance professionals surveyed by Thomson Reuters Governance, Risk and Compliance, almost 40 percent spend at least half a day every […]