Ethics & Culture

The Internal Revenue Service is pushing a dramatic expansion of how tax returns must report the certainty of the tax positions they claim, imposing new burdens on tax preparers and essentially forcing the already unpopular rule for financial statements onto the corporate tax return. The change in tax compliance is part of a provision in […]

It’s the $64 million question in Corporate America: How do you “measure” culture and determine whether your ethics and compliance initiatives really work? Despite the mainstreaming of governance and compliance, that challenge remains daunting for companies of all stages and sizes, according to a panel of compliance experts. Klafter “We’re still struggling to figure out […]

In February 2007, health products giant Johnson & Johnson disclosed that some of its foreign units might have made improper payments related to the sale of medical devices. By voluntarily disclosing the information to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, pledging full cooperation with the agency investigations, and accepting the early retirement […]

Having established global compliance and ethics functions and implemented programs at two multinational companies with a combined total workforce of more than 150,000, and having networked with hundreds of my peers in other companies, I’m often asked what I would have done differently in my jobs or to summarize my most valuable lessons learned. Aside […]

Walk into any fitness club this time of year and witness the phenomenon: What started on Jan. 1 as an unwavering commitment to get in shape has become a struggle to keep the momentum, if not an outright surrender. Gyms that were packed with people three weeks ago are starting to look deserted. For many […]

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted to help fight corporate fraud. Public companies have spent untold millions to comply and hired compliance and ethics officers ostensibly to ensure that the law is adhered to. Yet, somehow, at the end of the day, fraud is still here. However comprehensive your code of ethics may be, and however […]

Nearly three-quarters of callers to corporate whistleblower hotlines haven’t tried to take an issue to management first—and people who report corruption and fraud are actually less likely to seek anonymity than those who report other types of issues. Those findings are just two of many in a first-of-its-kind benchmarking report recently released by The Network, […]

You hear the shout from Jim next door in the Purchasing Department: “Woo hoo! Look at what our vendors at Acme Corp. just sent me!” He waves the gift over the cubicle wall. “It’s one of those remote-control dinosaurs that’s sold out everywhere. Boy, my son is going to love this!” Not wanting to completely […]