Ethics & Culture

As everyone reading these words knows, Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 to improve transparency and accountability in business processes and financial reporting. The intent was to increase confidence in public markets. Section 404 of SOX outlined the requirements for senior management at publicly traded companies to assess the effectiveness of internal controls, and […]

At the request of subscribers, Compliance Week offers a Remediation Center, in which readers can submit questions—anonymously—to securities and accounting experts. Compliance Week’s editors will review all questions and then submit them—confidentially, of course—to specialists who can address the issues. The questions and responses will then be reprinted in a future edition of Compliance Week. […]

It’s 2009. Do you know where your gift and entertainment policies are? Amid the economic downturn, heightened anti-bribery enforcement, and glaring headlines of lavish corporate spending, observers say compliance departments would be wise to review their policies on gifts and entertainment. In a recent survey of more than 500 compliance and ethics professionals, 46 percent […]

$246 billion ConocoPhillips today announced the appointment of Gary Russell as general auditor and chief ethics officer of finance. Russell, previously general manager of investor relations, finance, replaces Glenda Schwarz, who will become vice president and controller of finance. The company also appointed E.L. Batchelder as senior vice president and chief administrative officer. Batchelder, previously […]

CA has announced five senior appointments in its law department, including the appointment of Gary Brown as chief compliance officer, and Joel Katz as chief ethics officer. In his new role, Brown has responsibility for the handling of compliance issues and management of compliance improvement programs. Brown, who joined CA in 2005 after serving for […]

Among the many, many tales of ethical lapses at Enron, one of the more poignant and painful episodes involved an employee meeting that happened just before the company fell to pieces in late 2001. A worker asked Ken Lay, then president of Enron, about rumors of the company’s failing health. The employee wanted to know […]

Whistleblower claims can present substantial risk to a business. Generally, whistleblower protection laws are designed to protect those who report misconduct that implicates some matter of societal interest. The various state and federal whistleblower protection laws cover a wide range of subjects, literally from “a” (airline safety) to “z” (zoo animal abuse). In the corporate […]

The concept of corporate culture is difficult to get one’s arms around. We know it exists within every organization, although trying to identify or define it is challenging. That notwithstanding, executives who have been through the “wars” know well that shaping a company and its people to the desired culture plays a major role in […]

Compliance Week and Integrity Interactive are preparing a major global survey of concerns about corporate integrity, to be conducted early this year. The survey will explore how multinational companies structure their compliance and integrity programs, with a particular focus on monitoring and reporting possible infractions. The survey will also address key global compliance risks across […]

Dear Pat, Our new CEO requested and received an exemption from our company’s ethics and compliance training, which is required of all employees as stated in our Code of Conduct (and which every employee must certify yearly). He is no longer required to take any of the courses everyone else does. Now he has asked […]