Recent settlements of allegations brought under the False Claims Act of defective pricing serve as a reminder to companies doing business with the government to tighten up their procedures around pricing. Cisco Systems and Westcon Group North America agreed to pay $48 million to settle claims they made misrepresentations to the General Services Administration and […]
Internal Controls
Posted inInternal Controls
Outsourcing Failure Lands Zurich Record Fine
U.K. regulator the Financial Services Authority has hit Zurich Insurance with a record fine for failing to keep confidential customer information safe. Zurich lost the personal details of 46,000 customers, including in some cases their bank and credit card information. The regulator found that the company did not have adequate systems and controls in place […]
Posted inInternal Controls
Remediation Center: CCOs, Subsidiaries & Reporting Roles
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. […]
Posted inInternal Controls
SAS 70 Reports, in Harsh Spotlight Again
A recent analyst report is reminding the compliance community yet again that so-called SAS 70 reports—the supposedly formal assurances software vendors give to corporate customers about their own internal controls—should be viewed with a skeptical eye. Analysts Jay Heiser and French Caldwell, both research vice presidents at Gartner, say some vendors (and even some of […]
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
Case Study: Abiomed Conquers Segregation of Duties
Like most small public companies, Abiomed Corp., a $73 million medical device maker, must meet all the same Sarbanes-Oxley internal control compliance requirements as most large public companies—but with quite fewer resources. Little wonder, then, that achieving SOX compliance quickly proved to be an expensive, labor-intensive process that overwhelmed Abiomed’s small IT staff. A particularly […]
Posted inInternal Controls
As Congress Mulls SOX Exemption, Survey Suggests Acceptance
As Congress inches ever closer to permanently lifting the internal control audit requirement for smaller public companies, Protiviti has published its annual survey showing companies with compliance experience are starting to see the benefits. In its 2010 Sarbanes-Oxley compliance survey, Protiviti says 70 percent of executives in at least their fourth year of working to […]
Posted inInternal Controls
Social Media Use in the Financial Industry
More and more, the financial services industry is realizing the business benefits of online social media tools—as well as the legal and compliance risks that come along with them. A just-released survey of nearly 200 financial advisers found that more than 60 percent already use social media for business purposes, that figure is expected to […]
